Snapshots of Sophie

Hey! Here is a snippet of my NaNoWriMo novel Snapshots of Sophie - enjoy!!

“There was nothing more she could do. She had done it all before. Nothing worked - at least not for her anyway. No matter how hard she tried or how industrious she was there was no denying it. Things had gotten so bad that she felt she was a total failure. Only one possible solution lay before her now – one possible way out of her current crisis and onto a calm and peaceful future.

Death was her only option. Her friend, confidante and soul mate. She felt it now more than ever before – this was in fact the way, the truth, the light. There was nothing anyone could do to stop her.

It was already done anyway – too late for even her to interfere. Nobody could get in the way of this now. The deed was done. The outcome set in stone. Finally, she would be free of everything that was troubling her, everything that kept her awake at night and kept her from getting a good night’s rest. Everything. It would all be over once and for all.”

Sophie sat perfectly still gazing into her bedroom mirror in an absorbed but also slightly bored manner. She took in her pale and interesting skin, her deep blue eyes outlined dramatically with the blackest eyeliner, mascara and shadow she could find. Her stare lingered on her pale pink lips and on the black velvet choker encircling her delicate neck. Not a bad look over all – pale and interesting, distant and aloof. She felt she had a regal air to her that could rival even the snootiest of girls. She lifted her chin experimentally, practicing looking down her little button nose. Yes, she felt she did that well and that she could easily be a high society lady if only she had been born into that life.

As it was, she had been born into the most ordinary and dull life imaginable. The feeling of clanging disappointment she felt with each and every day was almost nauseating at times. Why should she have been born into this mind numbing dullness? Why should she have to continue her life this way when every fibre of her being was telling her it was all wrong?

Sophie sighed and put down her little silver fountain pen. She looked at the words she had written with a cool detachment. They weren’t bad she supposed. They pretty much summed up the typical teenage cry for help – the mention of death and the hint of suicide. This should keep her teachers occupied worrying about her so that she could focus on more important things herself. Like how she was going to change her life into what she knew it should be. She could feel the impatience eating away at her. The need and urgent desire to get things moving in the right direction were too much to bear. She wanted to be here perfecting her look and writing her heart out. But the world (and by the world she meant her mother) dictated that she had to go to school instead. As if somehow that was way more important. 

As she worked her way around her room, pulling on the tortuous uniform she was forced wear (blazer, tie, skirt – all in the most awful of colours) she thought of how different her life would be if she had been born a high society lady. If she had no school to go to but a governess to teach her singing, art and sewing. How very much more at home she would be under those circumstances. Staying at home in the country manor house, having lessons alone each day, learning to sit and stand and walk correctly. How to enter a room and command attention from the right people. Not how to do equations and how to boil an egg on a Bunsen burner. The mind boggled for her – it really did to be honest. How could she expect to grow up a lady when she was learning things that really were for boys to know not for a young woman of substance.

She pulled on her clunky school shoes – which had to be that way for health and safety reasons her teachers told her. She just looked so very ugly to her eyes. Not at all the way she wanted to look and be perceived. Sophie sighed once more. She felt that she was putting on her armour ready to face the world. That she had to pretend to be someone she really wasn’t just in order to fit in and be accepted and most of all left alone.

She hadn’t always done such a good job of hiding things. She had at one time been very open about how she felt with everyone. She told her mother, her friends and anyone who would listen how she felt. How much of an outsider she felt. That way just seemed to lead to inquisitions and questions and nag nag nagging. She soon learned that if she kept things to herself a little more then she was able to spend more time in her own little world undisturbed and uninterrupted. She could spend most of her time pottering around through her own ideas and fantasies without people constantly asking her how she felt and trying to get her to interact and connect with other girls her own age. She shuddered at the memory of those times. She had really hated the other girls in her school and felt as though she had nothing at all whatsoever in common with them at all. And yet she was forced to go through wit all of these little gatherings and get togethers. She had hated every minute of it.

Now she kept up the pretence pretty well. She stayed behind after school each day, telling her mother that she was with friends (so her mother didn’t worry that she wasn’t mixing properly) when in fact she was alone in the library with her favourite books. She was entirely lost in the worlds of the characters there and at her absolute happiest. She revelled in the lives of her favourite characters and imagined herself vividly living scenes from those lives. Right down the to tiniest details – the jewellery and it’s feel on her skin, the weight of her hair all piled up on the top of her head for a special event or the feel of a silk slipper on her foot. She loved the attention to detail the girls showed towards every aspect of their looks. She imagined that getting themselves ready for a social event was a mammoth affair involving not just her own hard work but that of many others in her fathers’ employ.

The characters in her favourite novel could while away a whole day in the most rigorous preparation for an important event. They could in fact spend more like weeks preparing other aspects of themselves and the impression they want to give to the other attendees of the do. Clothes had to be researched, colours and matching trims painstakingly put together. The best designers from London would need to be visited to ensure her dresses were most definitely up to the minute in terms of cut and neckline. The bodices would need to be adorned with the finest beadwork and lace that money could buy. And then the accessories would need to be chosen with great care. Slippers, jewels, handbags and silks for her hair. It was disturbing how quickly Sophie went from describing her characters to relating their lives to hers. She talked as though she was the character she was reading about and her imagination really ran wild a lot of the time. 

She would often read only one short chapter of a book then spend the following hour drifting away on a sea of her imaginings into a time when she could have been one of those young ladies. Imagining that she was anywhere in fact but right where she was in her real life. She really wanted nothing at all to do with this so called real life. She wanted to live within the kinds of worlds she read about. She wanted to find herself living the life of a lady in high society.

This was her fantasy world. Her escape. Her way to feel happy and exactly the way she longed to be. Her source of inspiration for how to dress, how to act and how she would like to be able to live her life. She knew she didn’t have the amount of choice over her own life and her appearance as she would like at the moment but she was preparing for a time when this wouldn’t be the case. She could not wait until the day she shook off the constraints of school life and exchanged them s=first of all for the easier and more accommodating life of a college student. The part of her life she was really looking forward to the most was her university years. She felt that she would be much more able to be herself then. She wouldn’t have her mother checking up on her every move and she would (she felt sure) find solace amongst her fellow literature students. She would find like minded souls who understood her. Not stupid people who just saw her as strange and funny and someone to be pitied and mocked. 

Those were the days that kept her going. The thought of living a fuller and more fulfilling life made her life at the present time much more bearable. Still her most favourite of pastimes was to read the books of her favourite characters and to let her imagination carry her away on a wave of dresses, manners, meetings and high society excitement. She revelled in the drama of it all. The chance encounters, the longing looks from suitors and the excitement of each and every ball and event. 

This was the stuff of dreams for Sophie. Her ideal life if truth be told was one of a lady living in wealth and luxury in a country manor house or estate. The only pressure on her would be to behave always as a lady should and to achieve a good match when the time came. In the meantime she would focus on learning to sing, to sew and to laugh prettily. She would have no need of cares or worries or problems. No reason to be a realist, to prepare for a life of hard work and sacrifice. She would be pampered, cared for and treated as though she was a precious gem and something to be cherished and shielded from all things difficult and potentially harmful to her delicate constitution. That idea seemed to Sophie like such a wonderful notion. Such a romantic ideal. Never mind being equal partners in a relationship. Never mind having to share one another’s burdens and woes. She wanted to be kept safe and warm, like a pearl in a shell being cushioned and protected comfortably and constantly. That was the life she longed for. Not this life that seemed so very difficult and stressful.

Her life hadn’t always seemed this way. She could remember when she was much younger feeling as though her world was the happiest one on the earth. She had enjoyed every minute of her childhood and had never imagined a day when she would feel as she felt right then. She thought the long sunny afternoons with the wind in her hair and the feel of the sun on her back would go on forever.

She had loved spending her days making up stories for her dolls and other toys to act out. She would give each of them their own parts and would imagine to the best of her ability that they really were those characters. She would have these very vivid pictures in her mind of exactly what her characters did day by day and she fell asleep at night imagining that they came to life when she wasn’t looking. 

She dreamed and dared to dream that her life would be happy forever. That nothing could possibly shatter the feelings of peace and serenity that surrounded her. She felt alive and full of fun and adventure. She didn’t even feel she had to shut herself away each day with her books just in order to get by. She felt she was happy just as she was. There needed to be no pretending of any kind. The dreams and stories and the fantasies were just that: fantasies. She indulged in them for fun and fun only. She was happy with her day to day reality and just allowed herself these moments of fancy as part of what was a very rich and rewarding life in fact. 

But now, her fantasies were the only things keeping her going. They were the moments of her day that she looked forward to the most. The moments when she felt truly alive. When she felt like her life was exactly as it should be. She had no fears, no qualms, no dread or despair. She just focussed on her ideal life and her ideal self. That way she could shut out all of the other things which blighted her day.

Sophie was finally ready for school. She looked at herself in the mirror. She felt that every trace of her individuality had been drained away. She had to remove her makeup and her choker (not becoming of a young school girl apparently) and stared at her tiny little eyes (or so they seemed when they were so uncovered). She had also shrugged into her horrible school shirt (which looked so much like a man’s shirt on account of the tie she had to wear). The tie itself was so very ugly: a really sickly combination of yellow and brown that just made her feel horrible whenever she looked at it. It matched the badge on her blazer perfectly – two yellow and brown design disasters staring back at her from the mirror. The blazer was just an ordinary black and it hung from her petite frame, engulfing her in a sea of black polyester. It was itchy and uncomfortable too. Coupled with her awful matching black polyester skirt and those clunky shoes she felt like a monster. A big, clumsy, heavy, clunky monster. A million miles away from the delicate, pale and interesting young lady she had seen in her mirror earlier that morning. She had been happy then looking at her reflection. She tried that look she had practiced. Raising her chin and looking down her button nose at herself she realised that the look (although she had it down to a tee) just didn’t work at all well when she was dressed as her ordinary boring day to day self. She sighed once more. Nothing really suited her well at the moment.

She picked up her bulging school bag, placing into the compartments her notebook and silver fountain pen. She checked for extra ink cartridges (she really hated to have to write in biro) and shrugged the bag over her shoulder. It was so very heavy – so many subjects and each one requiring it’s very own book plus textbook and other sheets of paper. No wonder the rainforests were dying out really. Teachers she was sure were the main culprits for this. If they didn’t spend all of their time photocopying handouts and insisting on everything being written down then she felt sure the world would not be in the mess it currently was. In fact, teachers had a lot to answer for really. A lot of things would not be as they were currently without the influence of teachers. Some of the kids at school who didn’t want to be there (such as Sophie herself) would be able to organise their own education and choose their own path in life. 

Of course, teachers always tried to make you feel as though you had your own choices to make and that you could feel confident enough to make those choices yourself. After all, you get to choose your own GCSE subjects (well, some of them anyway. And of course only from a list of approved topics that the teachers provide). There really was so little choice available at all. There also were the compulsory subjects which were forced upon every student no matter what their preferences. Which was very frustrating. But it was always sold as though students had all the choices in the world to contend with and as though they should be very happy and grateful to have those. The worst teachers were the ones who went on and on about how much choice kids have these days compared to when they were at school. It that really supposed to make us feel more grateful about our choices Sophie wondered? Because it really didn’t. Not at all. Not even a little bit in fact. In fact, it only really served to wind her up more and more. In fact, thinking about it now was getting her more and more angry by the second.

She had to take a moment to compose herself. She could hear her mother downstairs pottering around in the kitchen with the breakfast things and she knew that she had to have her face straight ready for then. Her mother was always on the lookout these days for any emotions or anything appearing different or wrong with Sophie. The slightest change in her glance or her posture would unleash a whole world of fuss from her mother and would make for some very uncomfortable times for Sophie. She had learned to operate a little more under the radar really in order to avoid all of this fuss and worry. It only served to limit her freedoms and meant that she couldn’t escape into her literary world as much as she liked. Her mother would want to sit down and talk about it all and check in with her and make sure she was alright. And that was definitely the last thing she wanted. 

Sophie took one last look at herself in the mirror, checking for any clue as to her mood or feelings deep down inside. She felt she had hidden them sufficiently away from prying eyes and so headed down to face the day. It wouldn’t be long she reasoned until the school day was over and she could immerse herself in the library once again. Those were the hours of the day she really lived for. The hours that made the rest bearable.

She headed down the stairs and towards the kitchen. Her face was already prepared with a half happy half sleepy look to it and she felt the minor spring in her step she was cultivating as part of her jolly façade which was constantly presented to the world outside. This was the kind of Sophie that people wanted to see after all. So she was only giving them what they wanted from her.

*

When life is full of lemons continued....

Sally was what people described as a bright girl. She had sailed through her education pretty well, and had even spent a lot of her time at school helping others to do their work whilst completing her own.

She was kind, friendly and open. Hard working, honest and trustworthy. “A credit to her family,” her reports read. “A pleasure to teach.” She left school with a very good set of GCSE results and went onto sixth form college. It was always crystal clear that she would end up going to University and would study for a degree. It was deciding which subject to study that was the only difficulty.

When life is full of lemons continued

It all began after leaving university. No, wait – that wasn’t really true. There had been issues before then too. During college. But not to the same extent. Uni was where the rot really set in.

The thing Sally couldn’t seem to do at all was to budget. She never had been able to. Not that she hadn’t tried. She really had. Plan after plan had been made and failed. She had all the right intentions but somehow things never seemed to follow her plans. If she planned to put away some money one month, an extra bill would come in that had to be paid. If she had only just enough money to manage, a payment would be late and the bank charges that followed would mean she couldn’t afford all that she had to.

But the irresponsible spending – the real root cause of all of the trouble – began in earnest during her University days. It started with a generous overdraft – quickly maxed out. Then a credit card from the bank – again all spent up so quickly. The real killer though was a store card she got on a cold rainy night that allowed her to buy a new dress for the upcoming social that really tipped her over the edge.

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the difference between right and wrong. It wasn’t even that she didn’t understand the consequences of not being able to pay off and deal with these debts. She just really struggled with making ends meet. And the more she struggled, the more kind and friendly people seemed willing to offer her a way out – an answer to her problems. Or so they seemed. In fact, they really weren’t the answers she wanted or needed at all.

When life is full of lemons

When life just throws you lemons, when your world is upside down.

What can you do? What can you say? To turn your life around.

When life don't seem to friendly, when it seems to spit you out.

Simply pick yourself up and dust yourself off and don't give in to doubts.

Life is a funny old game - it really is. Just as soon as you think you've got it all figured out and everything is planned then BAM!! Presto chango!

Sally knew that feeling all too well. She had spent most of her adult life it seemed swerving from one mess to another and feeling time, money and opportunities slip through her outstretched fingers. Every plan, every solution, every well formed idea for getting herself back onto the straight and narrow seemed to somehow go astray and leave her little or no better off than she was before it began.

What was the secret that other people - more successful people - clearly knew of but that she had clearly missed out on? She wondered this daily. Sometimes even hourly. How had she not gotten herself out of this mess already?

Chapter 7

Murphy thought initially he was in the exact same place he had been standing before he had blinked – everything seemed the same. The stone bridge, the specific stone with the copperplate T was still there and Jake and Jacobi were holding onto it as before. It was as he looked down at his feet that he noticed the first difference. Instead of the dirt road he had been on Murphy was most surprised to see concrete pavers underneath his feet. He realised also that he could hear the sounds of lots of people talking, walking and generally buzzing around coming from the edges of the supposedly new tunnel he found himself in.

He Jake and Jacobi headed left out of the tunnel towards the light and presumably the street outside. Murphy was bracing himself all of the time as he had no idea what to expect. One thought really excited him however: Jacobi had said “London” – maybe he would get to see his friends John and Sasha on this trip! He eagerly hurried towards the exit of the tunnel.

He found himself in a bustling and busy street with people hurrying past him in both directions. He could see people chattering away to themselves it seemed on all sides, much as he’d seen businessmen do into mobile phones before. They all seemed to be in such a hurry, the movement and noise of them made him feel a little dizzy at first. He looked around some more, trying to get his bearings. He was in a busy street in London suddenly, far away from the quiet village and country lanes he had almost gotten used to finding himself in before. He was still quietly baffled, but was just glad to be anywhere other than Whitleby to be totally honest.

He looked more closely at the people jostling by him as they made their way down the street: they were, as he had thought earlier, talking to themselves. He could see no other explanation for it. He tried hard not to stare and stare at the smartly dressed man in a pinstripe suit and bowler hat coming towards him having a very heated conversation with no one as he walked on by. Or the mum with her baby in a pushchair talking to herself also. Jake and Jacobi were paying no attention to anyone around them at all, so he assumed this must be considered totally normal behaviour with them. Especially as everyone almost as far as the eye could see was doing much the same thing. He filed this away in his brain as something he should ask about once he got the opportunity.

They were heading towards the business district Murphy assumed as the buildings on either side of him seemed to be getting taller and more imposing as they walked. It was at this point that Murphy really started to look up at the buildings around him. What he saw made him want to duck and run out of the way. Office after office was piled one on top of the other, all in different styles with some looking very precariously balanced on the property beneath them. They were all different  sizes too you see – and they weren’t stacked according to that  either. You had huge impressive looking steel framed offices with floor to ceiling windows sitting atop tiny little offices with more conventional bricks and mortar walls with average size windows. There were more flamboyant offices in all the colours of the rainbow it seemed – some in the Spanish style he had seen on holiday: the bumpy walls, oval windows and vivid colours of Gaudi. Others were in a more Moroccan style, with terracotta walls and large windows. The result of this was a series of buildings which tottered on their foundations and gently seemed to sway in the breeze. Which everyone else around him seemed to be totally OK with – in fact, they didn’t really give the buildings a second glance at all. Murphy wondered how exactly these Montalians could live in London and still not be known to any of the humans living here also. How was that possible? Surely someone would have noticed. They would certainly have noticed the buildings even if they didn’t notice the people.

Murphy was straining hard to stop himself from just gawking and staring at everything around him. It was truly breathtaking – he felt totally in awe of what he was seeing. Buildings that seemed about to fall down around him – indeed, buildings that by all logical argument should not have been able to be built – were all around him. As he wandered on further, only dimly aware of keeping Jake and Jacobi in his sights lest he get totally lost, he stared upwards in disbelief. He could see a miniature Taj Mahal up ahead, on top of which he saw what could only be described as a Circus tent of the red and white stripy variety. It's doorway flapped idly in the breeze as he wandered underneath it's swaying, tottering form. How in the world could that have gotten there? Was he quietly hallucinating? He wouldn't be at all surprised if he was hallucinating this entire experience. This entire day – or was it night time? It should be after all...... maybe he was dreaming. Maybe that was it. Maybe. He would wake up soon to no doubt the pouring rain lashing the windows of his house in Whitleby. Maybe he might even prefer the dream.......

*

They arrived at their destination as they rounded the next bend in the road. Around which corner another little surprise awaited him. If he had thought the people were a little strange, the traffic here was most certainly not what he had expected. Bicycles – every colour, shape and size imaginable. There were single bicycles powering down the road with suited and booted passengers along for the ride. There were whole families sharing bicycles and having obviously friendly conversations whilst they were at it. Which isn't all that strange really. But when he realised that no one seemed to be pedalling these bikes, then he really started to wonder. They all had pedals – where else would they rest their feet? But no one was using them. The bikes seemed to propel themselves along the street quite happily under their own steam entirely.

They also seemed to leave behind them a kind of vapour trail almost. A little like the white smoke the Red Arrows use in their displays. Murphy got the impression of the bikes acting almost as rubbers as they pootled along, erasing any dirt or pollution in their wake.  The air and the sky certainly seemed to be clearer and brighter as they passed through it. Which is in fact exactly what the bikes do, as Jake explained when he asked him. “Pretty cool huh?” Jake asked with a grin. Pretty cool indeed thought Murphy, but satisfied himself with a nod in Jake's direction. They had most definitely arrived as Jacobi was disappearing through a glass door of a very tall building indeed. They were being ushered inside of it somewhat impatiently, Jacobi no doubt wondering what the big hold up was. It's not as though anything was a little strange here right? Yeah, right thought Murphy. Nothing to see here at all. Sheesh.

So, he did what any boy of his age in a foreign country – maybe even on an alien planet – would do: he followed them inside. And once more silenced the little voice in his head that was growing bigger and bigger by the minute. What harm could it do? How bad could it really be? He felt relatively safe here with Jake. Jacobi he wasn't so sure of though – he smiled as he walked past him through the door he was holding open for him. Jacobi was an entirely unknown entity to him at this point, and an impatient one at that.

Jacobi shut the door smartly behind them and took off into the main lobby of the building they were in towards the lift. He was all business like and efficient it seemed, and there wasn't a moment to waste at all. Wherever it was they were headed to it seemed Jacobi was eager to get himself and them there.

We scurried along behind him, Jake and me, as fast as my curiosity would allow. All over the lobby were so many interesting people. I wanted to stop and take it all in. I also wanted to try and check out the signs to see if I could figure out where exactly we were heading for. No such luck. It seems when you travel with a Montalian you have to travel fast. And Murphy was already falling way behind.

He reached the lift just in time, as the doors closed right behind him. Jacobi tutted with impatience and Jake grinned. He really was holding Jacobi up today it seemed. As they headed up through the different floors Murphy got a chance to catch a glimpse of what was actually going on in the building. They stopped with the usual ping on floor four where two of the tallest men he had ever seen got into the lift with them and continued the journey upwards. They wore cream and brown robes and little round flat caps, patterned and embroidered all around the edges in a style Murphy had never seen before.

They talked between themselves, barely even noticing that there was anyone else there. There was no way the other passengers in the lift could eavesdrop their conversation however: they were talking so quickly and in the kind of native tongue that only a native could follow. Lots of “kuh” and “chuh” sounds and almost constant gesturing with their long and descriptive hands. They were it seemed having a very heated debate about something. What they were debating Murphy couldn't even begin to guess.

They got out of the lift only two floors later, and left the other occupants with a slight ringing in their ears. It was tough work being in a small, echoey metal box with those guys – thank goodness they hadn't been going all the way to the top along with them. Which Murphy now realised they were: going al the way to the top. The lift stopped on a few more floors and other characters made their way into and out of their personal space with varying degrees of intrusion. A lady got into the lift wearing a hugely flowing gown and the tallest hat Murphy had ever seen. EVERY time she moved she was seriously in danger of hitting one of them with the pointy end of it. Another was followed in and immediately surrounded by the thickest fog of the most sickly perfume he had ever smelled. In such a small space it very quickly became very hard to breathe. They covered their mouths as discreetly as possible and tried not to cough –  or even worse to gag. How could the woman herself be so utterly unaffected by this? After all, she was at the very epicentre of the perfume cloud. Surely she should be feeling it the most.

As she exited the lift they breathed an audible sigh of relief, greedily sucking in the fresher air outside of the lift before the doors could close on them. They felt they had had a very close call there with suffocation. They were so happy to be given back their ability to breath. Thankfully they didn’t have much longer to wait in that lift anyway.  Two more floors and they had arrived. Jacobi strode purposefully out onto the landing leaving the others with little choice but to follow him out there. Murphy took his one hundred and fifty six thousandth calming breath as he followed Jacobi down an unknown corridor to goodness knows where. How bad could it possibly be after all? It can’t seriously be any weirder than it already has been for him. Or so he hoped.

They came to an abrupt halt outside of an office door. Brown wood, looked perfectly normal. Nothing to fear here. The name on the door was a little unusual however: His Excellency the Royal Misoman Emperor of State (and all things human related). Interesting – very interesting. That was one heck of a title for any man. One heck of a title. All things human related. All things? How was that possible? For one man? Very strange. Very strange indeed. Or in fact very ordinary. After all, everything here was ultimately strange.

Jacobi knocked on the door and an extremely deep voice answered that he should enter. Murphy would know soon enough about the man who owned this impressive top floor office.

*

When he sat down in a vacant chair in front of a very big and important looking desk he found himself face to face with the biggest smile he had ever seen. This most excellent Misoman was clearly an exceptionally friendly person (or indeed a very good liar). He felt at ease though – he didn’t sense anything scary or dishonest about this man. He seemed honest and very much glad to see them.

“How are you my friends?” Misoman beamed at the assembled group in his office as though they were all old acquaintances. Never mind the fact that he had literally just that second met Murphy. He smiled to himself at this did Murphy – he liked Misoman already.

“I hope you had a pleasant trip here,” Misoman continued with a twinkle in his eye. “I have been looking forward to meeting with you – it promises to be a very interesting conversation and an interesting time in our history. This new agreement I have very high hopes for personally. I think you will be a valuable asset to us here Murphy. No doubt about that.” Misoman smiled around the group and seemed really happy with the current situation. Murphy just felt even more baffled than before. What exactly was going on here? What were they trying to sign him up to?

“Ah my friend. You are wondering however about what exactly you will be doing as an asset to our little community, no? A very good question indeed, and it is indeed my honour and my pleasure to explain it to you.” Misoman had a very roundabout way of talking- each of his sentences seemed to go on a huge journey before they reached their conclusion but he did seem genuine in his intentions for Murphy and in his affection for his role. Murphy decided right then and there he would trust him.

“Now Murphy. Let me explain to you all that is expected of you when you move between our two worlds. We are in need of a liaison – a go between for our two peoples. We have had many of these wonderful people over the years, and indeed our own people also travel between the two worlds when necessary. It is important in order to keep our two worlds working in harmony together (and yet still separately) that we do keep up this spirit of co-operation among those in the know.” Misoman smiled warmly – he was really all smile to be honest. That was the biggest, most important part of him. It was his most impressive and overwhelming feature really. He was pretty much all smile. His deep, warm voice only served to emphasise that to anyone who cared to look and listen.

“Now, your roles will be very important. You will be key to our efforts to stay a secret from most of the human race, and you will also act as our eyes and ears - alerting us to any potential dangers or issues we need to take care of. You will be our key witness and our confidante at the same time. You will be steadfast and trustworthy but also sneaky and evasive when we need you to be. You will be a walking talking contradiction, no?” Misoman laughed loudly at this, throwing his head back and really letting loose with a big laugh all the way down to his belly. “It sounds difficult I am sure. What we are asking of you can be difficult at times. But we have faith in you – we believe you will be able to succeed at this. If not we would never have chosen you.”

Murphy found himself smiling confidently. He was sure he could do it too. Wait a minute: did that thought really just fleet across his mind? Where on earth did it come from if so? He thought he could do what exactly? His “job description” was exceptionally vague – possibly the vaguest job description he had every heard. What exactly in real terms did they expect him to do? What exactly was this role he was expected to fulfil? How on earth could he be honest and sneaky at the same time? The mind boggled – it really did. He decided it was time for him to speak – he had done too much listening already.

“Are you asking me to be some kind of spy?” Murphy though he had it here. All that sneaking around between different peoples and different worlds. He would be a spy. That would be his new role.

Misoman frowned. He was clearly a little uncomfortable with that word in particular. Although he did kind of shrug whilst answering, so Murphy figured he couldn’t be too far wrong. A spy – now that sounded kind of exciting. The kind of thing he would really want to take part in.

“Not so much a spy Murphy – we wouldn’t want to be thought of as spying on the human race – that would be very bad. Very, very bad.” Misoman shook his head and rubbed his chin in a thoughtful way. He was clearly looking for a way to phrase this just right so that he wouldn’t come across as some kind of bad guy. “ We need someone to be our eyes and ears. Someone who can easily go to places and observe things that we can’t always see. It is very difficult for us to move around in the human world during the day time – in fact we can’t really do that at all without drawing a huge amount of attention to ourselves. Therefore, during the daylight hours we need someone who can keep an eye on things for us. Someone who can make sure our operations are running smoothly. Someone who can vouch for us. At night time we need the opposite really. We need someone who will keep us from being detected. Night time is when we are most active, when we do most of our work. We need to be able to do that work undected. You will help us with that Murphy. This is probably the most tricky aspect of our work here. We have to keep ourselves a secret both for our own safety and well being and for the safety and well being of the human race.”

Murphy needed to take all of this in really. He needed time which he realised he didn’t really have. The sun was setting outside of the window, and he knew this meant he had to return to the real world. To return home.

*

Chapter 6

Chapter 6.


Murphy found himself on the same dusty road he had been on when he arrived. The sun was still shining in the sky, and people were still going about their day to day business all around him. He felt like his eyes were out on stalks as he walked along behind Jake and Jacobi. He just couldn’t stop himself from looking around at everything. He was literally drinking in his surroundings, and he felt pretty soon he would find himself to be drunk!

First of all, every person here was so small. They were all his height or smaller – adults and children alike. They pottered around wearing very old fashioned clothing. They looked like something out of one of his beloved history textbooks. The men wore cloth trousers and shirts, the trousers made of a suede material, the shirts of a kind of cotton, and they had matching suede slipper type shoes in the same colour and material as their trousers. All of the colours were browns, beiges, greens – natural colours. They looked like they had made them out of the very landscape around them. They were clearly hard working people who took pride in themselves and their appearances. He wondered to himself whether they always dressed this way, or whether they were in their work clothes at the moment, for they were clearly all busy working on one thing or another. There were some chopping wood, some collecting branches and leaves, some working what looked like huge water mills attached to their homes and others wheeling around barrows full of building materials was his best possible description of the contents. Materials to build what exactly he wasn’t sure.

He continued on his way to he knew not where, following Jake more by good luck than by good management. He was so busy looking around him it was a wonder he didn’t end up getting himself irreversibly lost. The women here were also hard at work, wearing lovely dresses in the same kinds of materials as the men. They all seemed to favour having their hair plaited so that it was away from their faces, which made his heart lurch a little. It was exactly the way his mum had worn her hair most of the time. The women were carrying around the chopped logs, taking them into their homes and collecting up the branches and leaves also. They seemed to be surrounded by children too, each woman was obviously responsible for at least three children who fussed around them trying to help often (but actually getting in the way) and playing children’s games. Games he actually recognised; skipping, hopscotch, tag – they were just like any other young children he had met. Except they were really tiny. They scampered around the women happily, dressed in miniature versions (or even more miniature versions) of the adults clothing. Everywhere he looked, people seemed happy, and the whole area had an air of contentment wrapped around it. It seemed almost like a kind of sanctuary. A family sanctuary where people would move specifically to raise their youngsters.

At this point, Murphy noticed that they seemed to be walking straight through this village. He found that the cottages at the side of the road were becoming fewer and further between and that the road ahead was surrounded by nothing but fields, with what he supposed were farm houses in the distance. He caught up to Jake now that there wasn’t so much to divert his attention.

“So, Jake – when did you first hear about this world – the Montalians? Was it when you went missing back in June? Or did you know before then?” Murphy was curious about Jake, about what had brought him here.

“I have always known about the Montalians – I am one in fact.” Murphy’s face must have registered some kind of shock, as Jake was looking at him in amusement. “I know this is all such a shock to you, and there is a lot you still don’t know. We Montalians, as Jacobi rightly said, live in isolation from the human race, with only a select few knowing of our existence. We do however have to keep in touch with what is happening amongst the humans. One of the ways we are able to do that is by living amongst them, albeit in disguise. Because of our size and appearance, this is most easily done by appearing in the human world as children. It’s not easy to do – it involves some memory modification charms and other magic’s, but in this way we can keep up with developments more easily and therefore work better with you all. So, we send a few of our own to live as human children and to report back on what they discover in the human world. There are lots of us living with families all over the world. I am one of the ones chosen for this duty. It is a great honour to be able to live with the humans as one of their own.”

Murphy’s mind was reeling: Jake wasn’t human? “So, how old are you then really? You can’t be a child right? They wouldn’t send in a child to do this kind of work would they?”

“No, you are right Murphy. I am in human terms, around forty years old.” Jake let that sink in for a little while. He was worried that Murphy’s head might literally explode if he had to take in any more information at the moment. “But, I am able to pass for a child in the human world, and I love my job there. I have also come to love my human family. It really pains me to see them so distressed at the moment. I know that they think I am missing.” Jake’s face had fallen and he looked really upset. “Yes, that wasn’t part of the plan at all. It was a very hurried return to my home village – my grandfather has recently passed away – that prompted me to leave in such a rush. Normally, when I have to report back it is planned in advance. I attend a summer camp, weekend trip or visit some relatives elsewhere and my human parents are then none the wiser. But this time it was such a rush – the memory charms we left behind for mum and dad obviously didn’t work. And now they are so worried about me. It’s really dreadful.” Jake sighed deeply.

Murphy was still kind of struggling to take all of this in really. His friend (albeit not a really close friend – more of an acquaintance actually), smiley Jake, was in fact someone else entirely. And where he was really from, he was actually old enough to be my father! It was enough to seriously boggle the mind. How could his parents not know about this? How could they be so blind? They really never questioned when he disappeared for sometimes weeks at a time? It just didn’t seem right somehow. Although his excuses were pretty realistic he supposed: children did go away to camps and relatives all of the time. “How often do you come here? You can’t do it all of the time or people would get suspicious wouldn’t they?” Murphy still couldn’t quite believe that Jake had gotten away with this for such a long time.

“You’re right – I only visit when it’s really necessary. I have other ways of communicating at other times.” Jake smiled at Murphy and waved – just as he had that day in the mirror! Murphy understood: the mirrors can be used to communicate and to travel. How very clever.

Murphy looked up at the road ahead and saw a bridge over the road he was walking. It was the kind of bridge that was so rounded that if it carried on under the road it would form a perfect circle, and as you walked towards it you had the feeling you were heading down a tunnel to somewhere else entirely. It was made of creamy sandstone and each brick seemed to Murphy to have been carefully placed and designed to form that exact structure and arch before him. It was a lovely old bridge, set in amongst the green fields surrounding it, and Murphy felt he would have liked to have stopped and painted the scene. He knew it was definitely a scene his mother would have enjoyed. Trying to capture the vivid greens, and blues and yet capturing the subtlety of the sandstone and keeping it as the focal point for the painting would have been a real pleasure. He sensed that there wouldn’t exactly be time for painting on this occasion however.

They were heading as a group directly under the bridge and Murphy looked up to see the intricately crafted underside of the structure also. Everything looked so well thought out, with each individual brick seeming hand carved and measured for it’s individual spot. He could see they were heading for a particular area, exactly halfway along the wall of the tunnel they now found themselves in. They wouldn’t be clearly be visible from either end: it had obviously been designed with exactly that in mind. The depth of the bridge was perfectly proportioned so that at this mid point they had some level of invisibility towards any onlookers. Murphy registered this information almost subconsciously as he huddled round a curious looking stone with a large copperplate T written on it. They had formed a tight circle holding hands without Murphy even realising. Murphy looked from Jacobi to Jake apprehensively: he wasn’t sure of what was about to happen but he had a feeling it would yet again be something new (to him at least). He took a deep breath and readied himself for whatever may come next.
Jacobi cleared his throat and in a loud, clear voice said “London.” Murphy blinked and his whole world changed once more.

*

chapter 5......

Chapter 5.
It was bedtime and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Murphy was contentedly brushing his teeth and heading in the direction of his room and his bed. Tired as he was, he had enjoyed his day really – especially having one of his favourite lessons – History with Mr Devine. He had had a lovely tea with his dad and Darla – sausages and mash – and had spent the evening watching the TV: a lazy indulgence which his dad didn’t always allow him to be honest.
He made his way along the corridor and for some reason instead of heading straight for his room, something made him turn towards the staircase and that mirror. It seemed that, despite his experiment he still had not lost his fascination with it. Or his confusion and disbelief at what he saw in it. He approached the mirror carefully and quietly, almost afraid that he might scare something/someone away if he made too much of a noise. He peered into the mirror cautiously: nothing. He sighed and smiled to himself ruefully. Why could he not just give up on this? It was so silly.
He turned and headed for his bedroom and began the process of clearing a path to his bed: clothes, school stuff and other assorted paraphernalia were blocking his way at the moment. He fought his way over there: why did he never think of how tired he would be at bedtime when he just dumped his stuff all over after school? Maybe because he was so tired at that point too. He had just about managed to clear a path when something caught his eye: a movement, or what seemed like a flash of light. He whipped round to see where it had come from and before he could do anything about it he found himself being dragged and drawn in the most peculiar way, against his own will. His feet weren’t moving at all and in fact his whole body was pretty much frozen in shock. He was being dragged towards a light in the corner of his room – he couldn’t explain it at all. He tried to cry out but found that his mouth wouldn’t co-operate with him. Nothing came out at all. Then he realised where he was being drawn towards. The mirror in the corner of his room.
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he was tipped unceremoniously into the mirrors surface. He braced himself as he approached the hard surface but there was no need to: he fell right through it as though it were liquid. He felt like he was falling for the longest time. Lights swirled around him and he felt dizzy and disorientated. He still found he was unable to make a sound as he fell, and there was nothing he could grab onto to stop himself. Wherever he was heading for, he would land there with a bump – that was for sure. The speed he was travelling was a real worry, and he seemed to be speeding up as he went along. The falling sensation ended as abruptly as it started. He suddenly found himself standing quite unharmed in the middle of a dusty country road. It was daytime wherever he was (which he vaguely registered in his brain as not being quite right) and he was surrounded by thatched cottages and fields. He had absolutely no idea of where he was at that moment and no concept of how he’d gotten there. One minute he was fighting his way towards his bed past his clothes and other bits and pieces: the next he was in what appeared to be at least a different county, if not another country altogether. He looked around him cautiously, his head still spinning from the journey here. As his eyes began to focus he could see more of what surrounded him, and more of the people milling around, seemingly going about their daily business. Seemingly totally uninterested in the young boy who had just appeared within their midst.
He rotated slowly on the spot to get a better view and jumped in shock. He came face to face once again with Jake, smiling as ever. He tried to form some words, ask some questions, but his mouth still wouldn’t co-operate with him at all. It was like it had shut down altogether.
“Hi Murphy. Long time no see,” Jake was holding out a hand to him, smiling nervously at the sight of him so stunned and confused, “Did you get here OK? You’re not hurt are you?”
Murphy quickly checked himself over: no visible damage and he felt OK. Well, despite the overwhelming sense of confusion and bewilderment. If you put that to one side though, he was definitely OK. Murphy blinked at Jake stupidly: he was still waiting for an answer.
“Yeah,” Murphy had to clear his throat, but finally his voice was working. “I’m OK, I think. What just happened? Where am I?” Murphy felt like his head might explode with all of the questions swimming in it. What had just happened to him and how did he end up here?

“You look totally shocked – let’s go and sit down and get you a drink. We can talk about it all then. You have a lot to catch up on, and lots of new things to learn.” With that, Jake led Murphy off down the dusty road towards the cottage on the corner of the street. It was a lovely place with roses around the door, a lovely little garden, and he could see when he peeked in the windows that it had all of the usual furniture, ornaments and other nice things you would expect to see in a cottage like that. That was at least a relief to him – he didn’t know where he was or how he’d quite gotten there (he was already talking himself out of the notion that he’d travelled through the mirror in his bedroom) but at least where he was being taken to seemed normal and friendly.
Jake knocked on the door and waited, and gradually the sounds of someone pottering around inside became louder and louder as they approached the doorway where they were. The door opened very very slowly, and it looked to Murphy as though it had opened on it’s own. He found himself backing away slightly, but at the same time he couldn’t peel his eyes away from the door itself. Who or what had opened it? Why couldn’t he see them? Murphy’s head started to spin wildly once more.

*

The next thing he was aware of was the feel of a nice comfortable pillow under his head, and of whispered talk going on in the room around him. Murphy felt relief whoosh through him: he had been dreaming, that was all. He must be in his bed now with his dad and Darla making sure he was ok. He opened his eyes, ready to tell his dad all about his crazy dream - only to find himself face to face with it once more. Jake was standing off to the left of him talking in whispers to a man he couldn’t quite see. He was guessing he must be the man who had opened the door to them. It was all coming back to him now – the journey through the mirror, the strange place he found himself in somehow in the middle of the day when it had been night time. Jake being here – missing Jake. The Jake he had seen in his bedroom mirror. It was all completely NUTS! He struggled to keep himself calm – he had obviously fainted away outside – there was no point in him fainting again. He took some deep breaths and tried very slowly to piece it all together in his mind. He’d been at home about to get into bed. He’d found himself somehow pulled towards his mirror in his room until he fell right through it as though it was liquid, not solid. He’d fallen down what felt like a long chute which was full of swirling lights and shapes and had made him feel exceptionally dizzy. He had then landed in the middle of a dusty country lane, in the middle of the day, surrounded by people (exceptionally small people now he came to think of it) and cottages he had never seen before. When he’d turned around, Jake had been standing there – smiling as per usual. They had then headed to this cottage he was in now, knocked on the door and Murphy had fainted at the idea of what or who was inside. That was about the size of it so far. Another deep breath had to be taken, and let out in a huge sigh. Murphy was struggling to remember a time when he hadn’t been totally baffled and confused. Really struggling.
At the sound of his sigh no doubt, Jake and his companion turned to him, all smiles and happy to see him awake. Murphy tried to force a small smile in return but found that nothing would come. That vaguely paralyzed feeling had stolen over him once more.
“Hi Murphy, how you feeling? Any better?” Jake was sitting next to him now, smoothing down the little blanket Murphy realised had been put over him. The other person seemed to be keeping out of the way for fear of scaring Murphy once again. “You really fell with a bang just then – you’re not hurt anywhere are you?”
Murphy ran a mental checklist up and down himself – all seemed to be in order. “No. I’m not hurt. Just really really confused. I don’t know where I am, or how I got here, or what’s going on,” Murphy seemed (finally) to have found his voice. “I just seemed to land here after some really bizarre stunt with my mirror and nobody has told me why or even asked my permission actually,” Murphy was now getting to be quite cross, “And I demand an explanation. Right now. And if I don’t get one then I’ll be leaving straight away. I didn’t sign up for this at all, whatever this is, and I’m not going to let myself be kidnapped or whatever just for someone else’s entertainment.” Murphy had sat up by this time, and had his arms folded across his chest and an extremely indignant look on his face. There was an edge of fear to him which hadn’t quite been there before. It had settled on his chest at exactly the same moment as he’d said the word kidnapped. He silently hoped and prayed that this wasn’t what was happening to him. It certainly would explain why the local missing boy was here with his parents and half of Whitleby frantically looking for him.
“Ok, Murphy, ok. You deserve and explanation and you will get one I promise. This will all make sense to you, I hope once you’ve heard it. Just stay calm and try not to get upset. We are not going to hurt you.” Jake looked really concerned about Murphy as he sat carefully next to him on the sofa. He hadn’t expected Murphy to faint, or for him to come round feeling so upset and fed up about the whole thing. He was quite shocked really at Murphy’s reaction. He just hadn’t thought of the situation being interpreted like that. “I’m going to let my friend Jacobi here,” Jake was indicating the little guy who’d obviously let them in with his arm, “he’s going to fill you in on all of this, as he knows much more than I do. Jacobi?” Jake handed over to his friend who smiled winningly at Murphy, his thumbs tucked into the braces holding up his worn old trousers. He strode forwards self importantly, turning out his black booted feet as he went, only stopping when he was directly in front of Murphy. At which point he rocked on his heels a moment and seemed to settle himself in, ready to begin what Murphy feared may be a long explanation.
“Murphy my boy – very good to meet you. My name is Jacobi, as Jake here told you already, and I am an elder of the townspeople here. It is part of my job to welcome new arrivals and to make introductions and explain circumstances as and when necessary.” He rocked a little once more, running his thumbs up and down his bright red braces in a satisfied manner. “Now, you are wondering about lots of things right now – how you got here, where here is, when you will be going back home, and why you have been sent here not someone else. I will aim to answer all of these questions in a logical and straightforward manner. I would like to point out to you that you will be returning home: we definitely haven’t kidnapped you. Ok?” Jacobi looked over at Murphy for confirmation of his understanding and he nodded back, feeling exceptionally relieved.
“Very good, then, very good. I will begin my story at the beginning – or at the very least very near to it. Try to keep up my boy – you will be learning a lot today about things which most people know nothing about. You are privileged, but with that privilege comes a great responsibility. I hope you are up to facing that responsibility.” At that, he took a very deep breath, looking around the room. His eyes focussed on a chair on the opposite wall. He held up his hand, palm open, fingers outstretched. He didn’t even have to utter a word and suddenly the chair moved over to him and settled itself at his feet. He dusted off the top of the seat, sat himself down and Jacobi began his tale.

*

Way, way back in the history of the earth, in the forgotten times – the lost age – my people (the Montalians) lived alongside yours. We lived a simple and happy existence, with each providing for the other. What one race could not do, the other did for them and vice versa. We did a lot for your kind, but they were grateful and gracious in their acceptance of our help.
Naturally, they were the race in charge of the earth – they are it’s custodians after all. It is their given right and responsibility – we have others. So we submitted to their rule, their regulations and in return received their shelter, company and friendship. Life was good for both races, and the earth’s population was a contented one. Unfortunately, this happiness wasn’t able to last.
As I said, we used our skills, and your people used theirs to work together for the greater good. But then your people changed. It’s hard to describe really; some of them became more ambitious than ever before and therefore saw some of our skills as a potential threat, which they never had done previously. They started to spread suspicion among the others and soon the two races began to drift apart from one another, with settlements of houses becoming distinctly separate. My people returned to the mountains which were originally their homes (hence our name) and yours continued to make your villages, towns and cities in the lower plains of the land. It was a fairly slow and gradual process, but in comparison to how long the two races had lived side by side in harmony it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.
Now, my people certainly weren’t all blameless in what followed. Some were, but others….. well, I’ll let you hear the whole story and you can make your mind up yourself. In response to these people spreading sometimes terrible rumours about us there were those among the montalians who wanted to teach the human race a lesson. They wanted to show people what we were capable of and to make them submit to our rule and law. This was a huge mistake and a grave error. That was never the way this was meant to be. We all took a sacred oath back when we were introduced to one another that the human race were in charge of and responsible for ruling and using the earth in the most responsible way possible. The montalian race were the cinquicians. Their role was a different one. They were to use their skills and powers to assist the human race in their achievements and their control of the earth’s resources, but they were never to rule. It was feared that if the montalians ever did rule the earth then their powers would make them eventually into tyrants who ruled through fear. It was thought that would be a natural reaction from the humans to a race with so much more power than their own. And obviously, the montalians didn’t want to have another race of people in fear of them, so they happily submitted to the idea of being second in command rather than the leaders of the earth.
This was the way the word worked in what we call the forgotten times – the lost age. We all lived in harmony. All of that changed. Some of the montalians decided that, in response to the growing suspicion amongst the humans, they would do better to rule over them. Some of the most high powered and important families among our kind became involved in the rebellion to overthrow and ultimately enslave humanity. It was and is an intensely embarrassing period of the montalians history. About which most of my race are very much ashamed. Some of the things which were done to your people at the hands of my kind were utterly appalling and inexcusable. It also became apparent that the montalians involved had been thinking of this course of action for a long time. Way before humanity started to become more ambitious for themselves and more and more suspicious of us and our powers. There was a certain (high powered) faction of the cinquicians who had longed for and indeed plotted for power over the humans for generations. It was only this dark time which brought all of this out into the open once and for all.
The other, law abiding and oath sworn montalians rallied round the humans and protected them as best they could, but inevitably they couldn’t save them all. They set up protection for them and hunted down and captured those responsible. It took many many months of terror and some of the most catastrophic acts we montalians have ever known took place at this time. But eventually all were captured or forced into hiding and retreat. Some of those remain there to this day – hiding from the law and from the truth. Protected by their families from the punishments they so rightly deserve.
At this point Jacobi hung his head in shame and shook it very slowly. He seemed lost in his own thoughts. Murphy was struggling to keep up with what he was hearing. He had thought he knew a lot about history. It was one of his favourite subjects after all. But all of what he had just heard was entirely new to him. The lost times and a whole new race living with humans on planet earth: he had no idea how that could be possible without there being any real record of it. It all seemed crazy.
He looked around at the only other face in the room who had been privy to this lesson in apparently forgotten history: Jake. He was looking sad and troubled too, much like Jacobi. There was no hint on his face of disbelief or of amusement. No shock, no humour in his eyes. It began to dawn on Murphy that this version of history may well be true after all. That what he had heard may well go some way towards explaining how and why he was here in this strange place. He looked to Jacobi and met his eye. He nodded: that was the cue for Jacobi to continue the story. The room was darkening as he continued, and with a click of his fingers the lamps in the room were lit, surrounding and suffusing them with a soft glow. With a deep breath he continued on.
So, it was a pretty dire time for all of us here on Earth. The two races were almost entirely in opposition, and the sheer amount of suspicion between us was overwhelming. The human race had lost almost all of their trust in us, and communities began to segregate. Montalians tended to reconstruct their houses together in districts, withdrawn from the communities of humans and living close by but with very little if any interaction between the two. Only the minimum of contact was preserved. The humans on the whole couldn’t forgive the Montalians for the way they had tortured and abused them during this reign of terror, and the Montalians who were left were the ones who hadn’t actually participated in any of the atrocities anyway. It made for an uneasy truce between the two races, which would only have needed the tiniest spark of a conflict to ignite it once more.
The Council of the Cinquicians was called and it was agreed amongst them all that the two races could no longer live harmoniously side by side. The Montalian race had lost touch with the human race and could not expect to live in the same way they had once enjoyed. None of the Montalians wanted to leave the Earth however, as they still felt it was their sacred, oath sworn duty to continue to assist the humans in protecting the planet and preserving it as best they could for future generations. They didn’t want to simply leave and abandon that duty. They decided then to go into hiding. It wasn’t that difficult – most of them were living on the edges of human towns or up near the mountains anyway, so we just had to devise a fool proof way of making ourselves invisible and undetectable.
This required some powerful magic and it took the entire council’s strength to pull it off. They all had to join together in the same recitation to cloak their existence from the humans. It took a lot of consultation between the members of the council to come up with a strategy that worked, but we have lived for hundreds of years since then in almost total separation from the human race, but still able to fulfil out role in maintaining the earth. So, the magic was devised, our way of life retreated from human view, and the humans astonishingly promptly forgot all about us. We are not mentioned in your history books, no one ever disturbs our quiet but purposeful way of life, and the world continues to turn and evolve as it was meant to.
Our version of the world operates in contrast to your own: when you sleep we wake. We are charge with the task of cleaning up what we can of your messes and mistakes which would cost the earth dearly. We also protect the human race from those who might still wish to do you harm. Remember, there were families who were forced into hiding who had taken part in or supported our uprising. It cannot be forgotten that they may wish to return to their task once more and try to rule the earth as they feel they should.

Very few people know of our existence. You are one of a very privileged few who gets to see our world and be a part of it. Although I’m not sure that will seem such a privilege to you right now. Jacobi chuckled to himself at his own joke. Despite himself, Murphy found himself smiling. Somehow being privileged to see all of this did make him feel a little better. Jacobi seemed to have come to the end of his tale, or at least for now. Murphy glanced at Jake, who smiled encouragingly at him. He sensed a change of purpose in the air: they had finished telling him about things. They now wanted to show him, to get him involved. And strangely enough Murphy felt OK about that prospect. He nodded at Jake and they all got up from their seats and headed towards the door and for Murphy at least, towards the next stage of this adventure.

*