Mike Shevdon - The Eighth Court

Taking revenge was not something I was generally given to. I didn’t make a habit of bearing grudges — my view was that every grudge had to be carried, and it was you that ended up with the burden. In one case I would make an exception, though.

I placed my hand upon the mirror in my bedroom, and felt for the connection with the stillness behind the mirror. I’d asked Blackbird about mirrors once, and why I seemed to have a particular affinity with them. She didn’t exactly know but speculated that perhaps all mirrors were subtly connected and that my affinity was not with the mirrors themselves, but with the space between them. As I felt the connection grow, I could feel the tension inherent in the connection, and I spoke two words.

“Sam Veldon?”

The surface of the mirror cooled, and around my hand the faintest mist of condensation clouded the surface. To me it felt like dropping a stone into a still pool, waiting for the ripples to return from some distant object. A buzzing emerged from within the mirror, and then a ringing tone. It rang five or six times and then was answered.

“Hello? Who’s this?” There was background noise — a pub perhaps, or a busy restaurant.

I removed my hand without saying anything, withdrawing my intention from the mirror, and the connection faltered and collapsed. That was all I wanted for the moment, so I went back down to the kitchen to rejoin the conversation around the table.

After a while I went back upstairs to check on my son. I reached down into his cot and rested my hand on his forehead, stroking his hair. He sighed softly, content in the sleep of the innocent. Then I went back into the bedroom and used the mirror again. This time there was no mobile phone signal, only the rattle and squeal of a tube train running down the tracks. I waited for a lull in the noise, perhaps when the train slowed for signals or before a station, and then said, “Sam?”

“Huh?” A voice, questioning, as if he were half asleep, or drunk maybe. “Who’s there?”

I took my hand away, and went to find Alex. I found her in her room, alone. “Are you OK?” I asked.

She looked momentarily as if I’d asked her some searching and incisive question, but then she relaxed. “Yeah, I’m OK.”

“Come and join us,” I said. “Mullbrook’s telling stories in the kitchen.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’ll come down in a while.” She sighed as if the weight of the world bore down on her.

“You always say that when you mean no,” I said, echoing her words to me.

She looked at me curiously for a moment, and then relented. “OK,” she said. “Are they good stories?”

“It’s Mullbrook,” I said. “When I left he was telling us how he stopped the cheese being stolen from the fridges by painting it with green food colouring.”

We went together down to the kitchen and Amber had slipped in, standing against the back wall. I smiled at her, but she ignored me, continuing to rest against the wall near the door.

“You can come and sit down,” I said, in low tones.

“On duty,” she said. “But I can listen from here.”

I sat Alex between Blackbird and I, and we were drawn into the storytelling. It had evolved into taking turns, where each would tell a story and then defer to the next. When it came to my turn, I hesitated. “I don’t really have any stories,” I said.

“What about the fishing village?” said Blackbird. “Tell them about Ravensby.” So I told them about Greg, the vicar of Ravensby, and how he’d discovered his calling riding bikes at breakneck speed down the hills of East Yorkshire, and helped me find the missing girls. I missed out exactly what happened on the fishing boat, as perhaps that was a story for a different audience.

Then it was Alex’s turn, and I thought she would be like me and have nothing to say, but almost immediately she began with what had happened at the top of Glastonbury Tor. The way she told it made it vivid for me. She described the universe torn open and laid out above her in such lucid detail that it was like being there. I could feel the piercing cold, hear the crunch of the frozen grass under my feet. It seemed more real when she told it than my memory of it, though I had been there, outside the protective barrier thrown up around the Tor. After she had finished there was silence for a short while. I think everyone felt as I did, in awe of what had she had seen.

Then it was Blackbird’s turn and she told a story of two brothers who fought over the possession of a magical talisman. Each of the brothers thought it was meant for them and no other, and the lengths they went to in order to prevent the other getting it left me wondering how much of the tale was true and how much fiction. She never did say what the nature of the talisman was.

There were more stories, and when it came time to withdraw I was glad to see that Alex was reluctant to retire. It was the first time I’d seen her enjoying company for a while, and it left me hopeful and optimistic. She bade us good night, and went to her room in a better frame of mind than I’d seen her in for some time.

While Blackbird went to check on the baby, I placed my hand on the mirror once more. The connection was quick and easy. I could hear snoring through the mirror, a rhythmic rasp punctuating each breath.

“Sam?” I said.

“Wha-? What is it?” The voice sounded panicky.

I released my hand and let the connection fall away.

“What are you doing?” asked Blackbird from the doorway to the nursery.

“I’m preparing my ground,” I told her.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“An old friend,” I told her. “Someone who owes me a big favour.”

“If he was a friend, why didn’t you speak to him?” she asked.

“It was Sam Veldon,” I said.

“Oh, was it? Perhaps I could speak to him. I have one or two things to say that would set his ears ringing.”

“I have plans for Sam,” I told her. “At the moment he thinks I’m dead, though there is a growing realisation that I might not be. I intend to capitalise on that.”

“Just don’t get shot again,” she warned me. “Next time he might choose to shoot you through the head.”

“I don’t intend to give him that opportunity,” I told her.

My intention was to stay awake for a while and wait until Blackbird slept, but I was more tired than I thought and slipped quickly into a deep sleep. It wasn’t until the baby grizzled in his sleep in the small hours that I came awake again. I padded across into the adjoining room and stroked his hair in the red light from the night-lamp until he slept more peacefully. The more I could persuade him to skip his night-time feeds, the better. No doubt he would wake early and protest his hunger, but that was a fair trade if he would get into the habit of sleeping through.

When I was sure he was asleep again, I slipped into the bathroom, leaving the lights off, and placed my hand on the mirror, whispering into the glass, “Sam?” I felt the glass cool under my hand and heard the characteristic change in background noise as the space on the other side of the mirror opened up. I could feel a presence beyond the glass.

“I know you’re there,” said a voice. “Where are you?”

“Soon,” I whispered softly, almost beyond the level of hearing. The words were swallowed by the mirror as I pulled my hand away and released the connection. I had what I wanted. Sam was awake, waiting for a word, living off nervous energy, wondering what would happen next. I had him where I wanted him. With a smile I went back to bed, and was soon asleep.

The next morning Blackbird was getting ready to visit Grey's Court. She was dressed practically, without the finery of the courts, in a plain skirt and loose top with a woollen coat over the top.