Jens Hoffmann - Simon Knox and the Prophecy of Asragur

He was now ready to leave and could hardly wait to board the train in Portsmouth Harbour.

Chapter 2

Patricia Knox watched the train leave the station long after Simon had climbed aboard. "What a morning", she thought and sighed deeply. Needless to say they had been running late again. However, they managed to beat the morning rush-hour traffic by cutting several red lights along the way.

They reached the train station of Portsmouth Harbour on time at 10:23. And just a few moments later, the train on platform one departed for Westbury.

Patricia's guilty conscience about letting Simon spend a great deal of his holidays with Aunt Abygale was soothed as soon as she had learned that Richard Dawson would also be spending the summer in Devon with his father.

***

Abygale Greenwood lived in a very old but beautiful house in the small fishing town of Fiddleton, nestled just a few miles east of Ilfracombe among high cliffs, near the beach and the offshoots of Exmoor in the countryside. Greenwood Castle, as she was used to calling her home, was built of natural stone walls, with small gables, a crooked turret on the east side and white glazed windows and doors. A massive waist-high wall overgrown with heather, made of rocks, encompassed a wild garden that could be accessed only through a small red door.

Aunt Abygale was an enthusiastic amateur gardener, although a closer look at the property revealed a passion mainly for her beloved rose and lavender beds that lined a big terrace on the southwest side of the house. In the middle of a garden filled with summer flowers and high grasses, there was an ancient oak tree that gave the place an enchanted and mystical atmosphere.

Nobody knew exactly how old Abygale Greenwood was, because the quirky but friendly and kind lady would always give the same answer to such an impolite question: "Alas, as if age really means anything. I am somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and twenty. But I feel considerably younger", she assures, usually with a mischievous wink.

Aunt Abygale was absolutely delighted when she received the call from her niece Patricia at around noon, telling her Simon's time of arrival.

"3:35 p.m. at the train station, oh I'm looking forward to it. I haven't seen the boy for ages now", she complained half-heartedly.

"Thanks a lot, Aunt Abygale. I really owe you one", Patricia said and once again her guilty conscience of the morning crept over her.

"Trish, my dear child, everything is just fine. I can't wait for the boy to get here", assured Abygale Greenwood, while putting her glasses on and writing her shopping list for the week.

"He will know what to do with himself here, believe me", she told her niece. "And when he brings along his friend Richard, all the better, it will liven things up again around here", she affirmed. "Spending half the summer with an old bag like me is really not much fun for a boy his age", she continued and smiled to herself.

After ending the call, she went about straightening up Simon's room and preparing dough for the blueberry muffins he loved so much.

While sitting in the train, daydreaming and looking out the window, Simon tried once again to solve the mystery of that strange thing that suddenly twinkled his way in the morning under his room window.

He had to change trains in Westbury and Exeter. For the last stretch of his journey he had a nice window seat with a table, where he had spread out a few comics and his photo album with pictures of ships. But he just couldn't concentrate. Across from him sat a fat man with a red face and moustache who was faintly snoring with his hands clasped on his round belly and his glasses slid down on this nose. Simon giggled quietly and fed the small, shaggy dog who sat to the right of its slumbering master. The dog took the rest of his ham sandwich carefully from his hand and proceeded to devour it with a smacking noise of pleasure.

Aunt Abygale got to the station in Barnstaple on time at 3:35 p.m., where Simon's train rolled in on platform two, on time.

Simon saw her standing at the end of the track waiting for him. He was overjoyed to see her again. As always she was neatly dressed; with a white blouse, the collar of which was held together with an ivory pin, a beige tweed skirt and footwear that was sturdy but not the least bit stumpy.

She seemed a bit rushed because her hair bun, always properly fixed on top of her head, was coming undone. She was wearing small glasses on the tip of her nose, as she often did, which were attached to a chain hanging around her neck so as not to lose them.

She came towards Simon with open arms.

"Lad, it's nice that you're finally here", she said and gave him a big hug. She had a fresh smell, like roses and lavender, just like her garden in the summer.

"Did you have a nice trip?", she wanted to know.

"Hello Aunt Abygale", Simon replied joyfully and let her tousle his disheveled red hair.

"Yes, everything went well. We were running late once again this morning, but Mum stepped on the gas to get us there on time", he smiled back to her.

"I already phoned with her and heard all about the mad rush to the train station", Aunt Abygale reported with a slight smile and shake of the head.

She drove a fairly old car herself. Not sleek and sporty like her niece's car but one almost as old as she was. At least that's what Simon was thinking when he saw the rusty-gray vehicle. But Abygale Greenwood would never dream of getting herself a new car at her age. So they drove, not quite as fast as the drive that morning had been, a few miles northeast from Barnstaple to Fiddleton, where Simon's summer holidays finally began in Greenwood Castle.

After arriving at Aunt Abygale's house, they had tea and Simon devoured half a dozen delicious blueberry muffins, the best he had ever tasted. He showed her his latest pictures of ships in his album and they played a few rounds of Scrabble until suppertime.

After Simon scoffed two large helpings of meatloaf, they sat on the terrace till nightfall and Abygale Greenwood shared one of her fantastic stories with her grandnephew.

As a well-read and educated woman she had traveled the world with Simon's great uncle, Harold Greenwood, and therefore always had a ready supply of new tales of adventure from nearly all parts of the Earth.

Simon was fascinated listening to her tell about a safari in South Africa, where she tracked down man-eating lions with her husband and a troop of big game hunters. Apparently one or more members of that expedition fell prey to the insatiable appetite of the lions, thus she ended the day's tale with gruesome undertones in her voice.

It really didn't matter to Simon how much his great aunt added to the adventures, as they were exciting enough in themselves. He had never before met anyone who could tell such beautiful, exciting and compelling stories as she did. Her tales of South Africa gave Abygale Greenwood a fantastic idea that Simon and Richie could camp out in the very same tent she had used weeks on end on the expedition in the African bush. Simon was excited. This vacation was going to be nothing but great.

The very next day the two of them started looking for the tent that was wrapped in canvas somewhere in the attic of Greenwood Castle, hidden among all of the memorabilia of long-past expeditions. Simon was amazed by the many things his great aunt had collected over the years. In one corner were imposing wooden figures and fearful masks from Africa, along with artfully carved ivory.

A handmade chess game of green and white jade that she had brought back from China was set up on a small table decorated with gold though quite dusty, among numerous Asian lanterns. There were also all kinds of swords, fancy daggers and antique pistols, as well as moth-eaten tiger skins that his great uncle had brought back from India and Pakistan. In a small chest with iron fittings, Simon found yellowed maps and sea charts as well as a small hinged compass made of tarnished brass, which he helped himself to along with some binoculars. "You never know when you might need such things", he was thinking.