Abby the Witch (16 page)

'I absolutely
insist,' Karing said finally.

She could see
it was going to be up to her to intervene here. Both Pembrake and
Karing seemed like the kind of men who, once they had stated their
place, would not shift for love or money. 'Okay then, that sounds
fair.'

Karing nodded
triumphantly, marching on ahead before Pembrake could counter
again.

Pembrake
didn't dig his feet in and refuse to move, which was a relief, but
he did catch up to Abby and lean down to whisper in her ear. 'You
fool, Abby, you have no idea who that is.'

'What? He's
just some random guy!' she hissed back, not appreciating Pembrake's
tone.

'That,' she
had never heard Pembrake speak so distinctly and with so much
gravitas, 'is my biological father.'

Oh dear, oh
dear, oh dear, oh dear. Though Abby wasn't exactly sure on the
protocol of time travel, it seemed like the most rotten of ideas to
run into your parents in the past. After all, you don't want them
in the future to suddenly remember that in the past they've seen
your future self.

Abby and
Pembrake had followed Karing up the street, Abby's mind ablaze with
the possibilities. She wasn't sure what to do, what was the safest
possible option to get her and Pembake out of trouble without
causing irreparable damage to the time line.

Whatever she
had to do, she concluded, it would have to not be
memorable. If they dashed off now and Karing turned to see them
running across the street in their ill-fitting clothes looking like
characters out of a strange fairy tale, he'd probably have the
image seared into his brain for life. She could not allow that. She
had to extricate her and Pembrake out of this situation without at
all making a memorable exit. And failing to make a memorable exit
was not really something she imagined Pembrake was capable of.

Pembrake kept
on turning to her and shifting his head pointedly towards the other
end of the street. 'Let's go,' he whispered, lips thin with
anger.

She couldn't
quite stop on the street and explain to him her thoughts on the
matter. They had to ensure that to Karing, they were the most
unmemorable people he'd ever seen. Because if for some reason or
another, he decided to remember them, then their future selves, or
Pembrake’s rather, would have trouble. She wasn't quite sure how
this timeline stuff worked, but was sure that Ms Crowthy would
agree with her conclusion: softly, softly.

Karing
eventually stopped before a beautiful sandstone wall and smiled
happily at them.

With one look
at the wall, both her and Pembrake almost fell over. Karing had led
them, no doubt while Abby and Pembrake were fantasising about high
tailing it out of there, to none other than Mrs Hunter's front
gate. Or what would be her front gate in the future. But as Abby
had heard Mrs Hunter say many a time, this house had been in the
family for generations.

As far as not
stuffing up the timeline went, taking a future son to meet his
mother in the past as well as his father, was an appalling turn of
events.

She returned
Karing a manic, wide-eyed grin. 'Oh my, look at the time, we really
have to go.'

Pembrake was
staring at the wall with a look like, well, a son might share with
his long-lost mother. It was like he was returning home, in his
head, to the times that he'd lived here.

Karing blinked
at her sudden excuse. 'The tree is just in the court yard-'

'No!' she
nearly shouted then laughed it off nervously, 'I mean I just
realised that we really don't have the time. I am so
sorry.' She bowed her head once and turned to flee, Pembrake,
thankfully, falling in step behind her.

'Sorry then,'
Karing called out from behind them.

Not as sorry
as she was.

They were
going to leave, they were going to get the pleck out of here before
the timeline shattered like a prized vase thrown against the
wall.

Well that had
been the plan.

'Pembrake!' a
woman's voice, light and trill, rang out from up the garden
path.

Pembrake froze
next to Abby, as if all the heat had been sucked out of him with
that simple word, leaving him a lifeless, static husk.

A woman ran
down the path, her white dress with lace trim streaming out behind
her as her bare feet padded against the clean cobbles.

'Darling,'
said Karing, throwing his arms wide and smiling with an open-faced
warmth that would reveal to anyone that he was the happiest man
alive.

The woman
leapt into his open arms, and he brought them quickly around her,
strong enough to lift her full weight without stumbling.

To say that
Pembrake was blanching, would be an understatement. His cheeks were
growing more sickly grey with every second. Any more of this
display and there would probably be so little blood left in his
head that he would collapse into a coma.

Abby watched
uncomfortably, shifting her gaze from the lovers to Pembrake, not
knowing what it was she should do. Their opportunity to run away
seemed to have passed.

It was clear,
even to Abby, who this woman was. She had the same dazzling green
eyes, the high cheekbones, and delicate hands of Mrs Hunter. Even
under the vibrant mask of youth, it was clear this was Pembrake's
mother.

But why had
she shouted his name?

'Pembrake
darling,' the young Mrs Hunter said quickly, 'who are these
people?'

Karing gave
them a pressed-lip grin. 'Friends of mine, Lilly.'

Abby replied
with a small smile of her own, then turned to her Pembrake and gave
him the kind of look that said clearly 'what kind of a person
actually names their son after their father?'. Really, it wasn't
even as if Pembrake was that fantastic a name to bother repeating
across a generation.

Her Pembrake
was oblivious to Abby's pointed look; he seemed to be preoccupied
with dying slowly. His whole face was now so slack, it was a wonder
his features hadn't slipped off into a puddle on the ground.

'Friends?'
Lilly said with an almost infectious joviality. 'They should come
in for breakfast!'

Lilly, aka Mrs
Hunter, didn't have a thing on candy floss – the woman spoke with
the find of sickly sweet hiccupy words that sent self-respecting
witches everywhere for a pamphlet on feminism and a swig of
brandy.

How exactly
could this bright-eyed, bubbling woman be the same sober, gentle
Mrs Hunter that Abby knew from the future?

Karing looked
back at them, a perceptible glint of satisfaction in his eyes. He'd
achieved what he had originally set out to do – get them
breakfast.

'Oh you simply
must come inside!' Lilly clapped her hands together and made a
noise not unlike a horse whinnying.

Sweet voice,
animal noises, a white-lace dress – what would be next,
puppies?

'Yes, you
simply must come inside,' Lilly continued the conversation on her
own, 'and you are just in time! I've just made a batch of cookies!'
Lilly said this last statement as if she'd just come up with the
solution to world conflict, she was that proud of it.

Dear plecking
lord, thought Abby. This girl was insane. How in the world could
she grow up to be the beloved Mrs Hunter?

Without
waiting for a reply, Lilly bounced up to Abby and hooked her arm
underneath Abby's, and began to pull her up the path.

What should
she do? Surely it was the worst of ideas to allow herself to sit
down for breakfast with Pembrake's parents – the possible damage to
the timeline could be irreparable. But she hardly seemed to have a
choice….

~~~

Pembrake
watched his mother latch an arm around Abby and pull her playfully
up the garden path. The look of wide-eyed shock on Abby's face was
beyond amusing. But overall, the present situation was not one of
mirth.

He cast his
eyes back to his father. Karing was smiling, his whole face getting
in on the act: his forehead seeming to disappear underneath his
crisp white cap.

He'd only ever
seen him in photos.

'So,' Karing
cleared his throat, ' I am sorry for this. But when Lilly wants
something,' he tapped the red roses he still had against an open
palm, 'she often gets it. You do have the time, don't you? Though
if you don't, you may have some time extricating your wife there –
I'm afraid Lilly just got a puppy and she's awfully proud of
it.'

'Larry,'
Pembrake said all of a sudden, unable to stop the word coming out.
Larry had been his dog as a child. He'd been so loyal and kind,
always following Pembrake around on his adventures. Whether it
would be running away from the Esquire gang or trying to sneak into
the slumps – Larry had always been there to bark and bite the young
Pembrake out of trouble. He hadn't thought about Larry in
years….

Karing looked
momentarily confused, but then his grin returned. 'Gosh, yes I
forgot to ask you what your name was – very rude of me. 'Karing
extended a hand, 'nice to meet you, Larry.'

Slowly,
carefully, Pembrake accepted the hand.

Karing's
handshake was quick and strong, like a dog shaking a slipper.

Pembrake could
feel the tingle trace its way across his back and up to the base of
his neck. It was eerie seeing his parents like this.

'You best come
inside then, Larry,' Pembrake Karing ticked his head towards the
great sandstone house behind them. 'Lord knows how many cookies my
fiancé has force fed your wife by now.'

Pembrake
Hunter was lost in thought, and gave a jarred nod, following Karing
up the path.

'Oh, and by
the way – is that your cat?' Karing pointed to Charlie who had
jumped up onto the wall and was looking for all the world like a
normal cat – no death glares and no macho threats.

'No, I've
never seen it before,' Pembrake took a moment to make eye contact
with Charlie, 'I imagine it simply likes to wait for people and
follow them.' He would hope Charlie, even though he was a cat,
could pick up on the implied command.

Thankfully
Charlie appeared to nod and padded his paws for a moment before
settling down in a patch of sun.

'Oh. Well,
you'll love this house – it's been in her family for
centuries!'

'Hmmm.'
Pembrake went back to his thoughts.

He'd grab Abby
and they'd run. They'd get the pleck out of here and never
return.

Each step
along the path, the clean cobbles tapping dully underneath his
footfall, saw the haze of nostalgia further engulf Pembrake.

The white
roses to his left, that hugged the back side of the wall, were
smaller, their branches not yet intertwined and knotted as they
were in the future.

The old apple
tree that he had once climbed as a boy of five to try and get a
better view of the ocean, only to fall out and break his arm, had
more branches and looked like a gnarled many-fingered hand. It had
lost most of its branches... it
would
 lose most of
its branches in a storm 15 years from now.

'It's a
fantastic old tree, 'Karing noted, ‘and it is full of apples.'

'Hmm,'
Pembrake massaged his right arm.

'So tell me,'
they had finally arrived at the door and Karing stamped his shoes
firmly on the mat outside, 'what brings you to Bridgestock?'

Pembrake found
himself staring at the detail in the cast-iron door knocker. When
he'd been ten, and mad at his mother for making him go along to
some stupid party, he'd slammed the door so hard that the knocker
had come off, chipping the paving by the door.

'It's only,
you don't seem to be from round here, and your wife has the
slate-grey eyes of the Mountain people.'

'I was born in
Bridgestock,' Pembrake said automatically.

'Oh, yes,'
Karing ushered him inside, 'and what do you do?'

'I'm in the
nav- I'm in the ni…ght watch,' Pembrake recovered quickly, and made
a mental note to start paying more attention. If he kept on
allowing himself to be distracted by every tree and rock from
childhood, he'd inadvertently tell his father that he was in fact
his son from the future. And that would factor quite high on the
list of temporal stuff ups.

'Really? You
can't be too happy about the changes that that William Franklin man
is trying to make, then – I've heard he wants to wrestle control of
the Guards from the Captain.' Karing looked at Pembrake keenly,
obviously generally interested in his opinion.

'William… you
mean the Colonel?' Pembrake quickly went through a list of royal
advisors and dignitaries in his head that he knew were important to
the history of 28-years-ago. The Colonel seemed to be the only man
who would have had enough gumption to suggest to the King that he
should change the whole organisational structure of the Royal
Guards.

'Oh yes, I've
heard him called that. But I find it curious considering he's never
served in the military.'

Pembrake tried
to concentrate on the conversation, not on the all-too-familiar
furnishings of the hallway. 'Yes. Colonel is titular; it was
conferred on him by the King when Franklin was successful in
advising for a pre-emptive strike against Elogia.'

'That was
him?' Karing's brow stretched with surprise and he opened his mouth
to say something else but was interrupted by a bang from the
kitchen.

'Oh you caught
the vase! How marvellously fast you are!'

Both he and
Karing rounded the door to the kitchen to find Abby with her arms
clutched around a large ornate vase, her face twitching with polite
shock.

Karing
strolled up to Abby and took the vase from her, resting it back on
the dresser. 'Don't worry, she's been trying to destroy that vase
every since we met.'

'I have not
been trying to destroy it!' Lilly brandished a tea cup at Karing
playfully, 'I'm just a little clumsy.'