Mushroom tea 1 Euro/cup
Irish coffee 2.50
Hash brownies 1 Euro each
The bearded owner gave Paul a broken-toothed grin,
‘What can I do yer sir?’
‘Er, you haven't got any normal real tea have you, by any chance?’
The man turned to a simmering kettle on a gas ring behind him and plonking tea bags into the mugs said,
‘Two cups of normal reali-tea coming up!’
Paul smiled back seeing the aptness' of the pun, while Elodie reached into her pocket to pay.
Clutching the comforting warmth of their cups, they made their way to the corner and sat on a pair of worn leather cushions.
‘So ...’ Paul stated, ‘you were just saying, you’ve had an “eventful” week?’
‘Yes,’ Elodie smiled at the understatement.
‘What happened, after you disappeared in the loft?’ Paul asked.
‘I used one of my false identities and took a private jet directly to Holland.’
Paul grinned at the contrast with his own penniless journey.
‘One thing we are in the society,’ she continued, blowing on her tea and looking up coyly, ‘is very-well connected.’
‘You know what happened to the others ...?’ Paul asked and Elodie quietly nodded her head her eyes dropping to her cup.
‘Your mum sends her love, by the way. She’s quite a character ... I’m not sure if she totally took to me.’
Elodie had to laugh and pointing at his clothes, she replied,
‘Dressed like that, I’m not surprised.’
They sat next to the warmth of the brassier, drinking numerous cups of tea as the festival gathered momentum around them.
They each recounted the events of their week, Paul’s tale finally bringing their minds back to the final task that was rapidly drawing nearer.
Elodie’s expression became thoughtful as she said,
‘I may not be able to dimension jump in the state I’m in but I can still help you.’
‘How?’ Paul asked.
‘With all these people,’ she gestured outside the cafe at the enormous festival site beyond. ‘Together we can raise the energy, build a bridge of power to help you cross.’
Steadily, but imperceptibly the sky was lightening through shades of blue away to the east, the vehicles and the crowds taking on gradual definition.
They downed the dregs of their tea and stood up.
‘The moment approaches,’ Elodie announced seriously, ‘and we both have work still to do. We will talk later, when it’s all done. Good luck Paul!,’ she said, before turning and walking away to vanish in the confusion of people, leaving Paul to walk slowly back on his own towards the floodlit police cordon.
The crowd surrounding the police circle had massively increased since Paul and Elodie had left, and was now, emboldened by numbers and perhaps sensing that here was the true centre of the festival, edging closer to the immobile police ranks, held back only by the menace of those tangled rings of defense.
The light in the eastern sky was rapidly increasing now, the stars fading out one by one as the pale blue of day engulfed them. How long could it be until sunrise, Paul wondered, as he stood concealed within the crowds.
Suddenly Paul spotted Elodie’s diminutive figure carrying a huge, african djembe and leading a snake of people holding crystals and drums to the front of the crowd.
Paul, clutching the crystal tightly in his hand knew the moment was drawing inextricably closer and he must start to prepare his mind as he’d been taught. It would have been handy if the Magur had given him some real training. All she’d really taught him was to focus his mind, hope for the best and run!
A bit more of a step by step technique would certainly be helpful now.
Still, there was nothing to do but stay calm and wait for the moment.
He watched Elodie’s lithe figure squat over her drum, her hands starting to bang out a slow and steady rhythm like the pulse of a heartbeat.
Immediately other drummers joined in, each one adding a new complexity to the sound.
Paul could hear voices raised in a chant, the words lost to him under the helicopter’s drone and the sound systems beat.
Paul listened, feeling the energy of the crowd building as people moved forward into no-mans land, stamping their feet and dancing to the pounding rhythm. He slowed his breath, willing that space of inner silence into himself. He had to remember now everything he’d experienced; the solid reality of that ancient world, how he’d slipped his consciousness into that dolmen on their long night walk and again into the walnut tree in the chase through St Germaine.
If he’d done it before he could do it again!
Paul edged closer to Elodie and the drummers, saying a silent prayer as he went.
He calmly pulled off his clumpy wellies and socks, they wouldn’t make running any easier, besides, the frozen ground felt good on the soles of his feet, connecting him to the hidden power coursing beneath. He unzipped his bulky jacket and laid it folded on his boots. He hadn’t permitted himself to worry all night but now standing here, it occurred to him that if anything had happened to the Magur, he knew he wouldn’t have the power to make the jump on his own. If the Magur reality wasn’t there, he’d be ... No, he didn’t even want to think about it.
The scene, lit up now in broad daylight looked even crazier than it had at night. Somehow he hadn’t imagined that he’d be performing his show to quite such a big audience.
The moment he’d been striving towards was here, the moment in which the destiny of Earth would hang in the balance. Dramatically, the first rays of the sun, beamed up from the eastern horizon. As Paul watched, he could see them spreading out through the morning mist, fan-shaped, brightening the sky. And then suddenly, the first tiny sliver of the rising sun rose red between the hills and the crowd erupted in raucous whoops and shouts.
Paul looked at Elodie, their eyes locked together and she nodded once.
This was it!
It was now or never!
Breaking free from the crowd, he set out running directly towards the ring of razor wire the police and the waiting Agents. Willing the Magur reality into existence with all his strength, he ran, his bare feet springing from the frozen ground and his baggy jumper billowing behind him.
Paul felt as if time had slowed down and although he was physically involved in the action, he was also watching it from a place of spacious calm. He saw himself charge, a lone figure pelting through the empty space of no-man’s land as one of the circling choppers peeled away, dropping like a stone through the sky.
He saw the three Agents heads swivel round to watch his approach and saw their arms rise, hand guns smoothly following his trajectory as they took aim.
‘Come to me!’ came the voice of the Magur, overriding everything else. ‘You have the power!’
Relieved to hear her voice and know that she was safe, Paul found new courage and in that moment he knew the jump was within his capability. When he was only three of four meters from the coiled razor-wire, he heard the resounding cracks of the Agents shots in rapid succession, at the same moment noticing the sudden purity of the air passing though his lungs and the increased power of the land under his feet, propelling him forwards.
The fabric of reality shimmered like a gossamer curtain blown by the breeze and Paul could see the riot police. He could see the explosions in the Agent’s guns. He could see the bullets streaking towards him and behind them all, an imposing circle of grey megaliths glimmered into view in the first rays of the sun.
In a moment, the ancient reality pulled itself into sharper focus, the wire, the police, the Agents and their bullets fading into insubstantial shadows and he sprinted onwards without resistance, hearing shouts and gasps of wonder erupt from the crowd behind him.
The pounding drum beat had receded to be replaced by an eery vibrating tone, its melody weaving and resonating around the stones and into the depths of the ear
th and Paul saw a circle of Magur seated within the ring of granite menhirs. But above them, hovering low over the entire scene, Paul saw the massive bulk of the enormous, gleaming spacecraft he’d fled from in the Magur world.
It hung, almost motionless just above the stones, it’s multiple rotors throbbing a beat of dread into the morning air and whipping Paul’s hair across his forehead.
Through the bulbous windscreen of the cockpit, the helmeted head and armored shoulders of the Commander could be seen, hands on the controls, laser guns targeted on the slab stone, ready and waiting.
Even in this moment of action, the incongruity of the image; the ancient, peaceful, tribal people from a forgotten past and the futuristic, high-tech, aggressive weaponry of the Commander’s craft, struck Paul in its stark, shocking contrast.
Why was the Commander waiting? Paul wondered fleetingly as he ran, intensely aware of both his own vulnerability and the likelihood of his imminent death.
But now was not the time to think, now was the moment to run. He pounded on, between the towering, grey stones, leaping past the Magur, heading directly for the centre of the circle where the squat slab stone sparkled in the first shafts of sunlight.
The moment felt timeless and momentous to Paul as the weak sunbeams gently touched his face. He could feel the vast galaxy that encircled him stretching into the spinning infinities of space and he could see himself only steps away from the slab stone now, the crystal held in his outstretched hand, enacting his part in a drama that would be part of humanities and planet Earth’s history from now till forever.
He reached the slab stone, fueled by the surge of adrenaline rushing inside him and thrust the crystal into the indentation on it’s surface.
At that exact moment, a solid blast of laser fire erupted from the guns beneath the space craft and Paul was thrown backwards onto the grass, momentarily blinded by the searing light and heat. He rolled over, opened his eyes, blinking in amazement.
The crystal, he saw, was now glowing a brilliant, magnesium white, absorbing into itself the power of the Commander’s continuous fire.
He heard the voice of the Magur,
‘Get out! Your job is done! Go!’ and he picked himself up and stumbled backwards, unable to tear his eyes from the solid beam of laser fire still blasting into the glowing crystal. And then suddenly, in a flash of dazzling intensity, it exploded!
He saw the tiny crystal shatter into a thousand pieces and then the enormous, slab stone beneath it cracked and splintered, the soft soil all around flung up and sprayed outwards obscuring his vision.
Paul felt his body picked up like a rag doll by the blast and flung through the air, the flying shrapnel of granite chips and soil all around him.
As he flew, he felt himself once more crossing that indefinable shadow world between the dimensions, to land hard on his back, firmly in his own reality. The breath was knocked from his lungs, his shoulder and hip bruised by the impact but he was essentially and amazingly unhurt.
The exploded slab stone, the Magur and the Commander’s craft, had all disintegrated, fizzling away to non-existence as he been thrown through the air, and looking to where the stone circle had stood such a short moment ago, Paul saw a strange phenomena occurring on the sunlit grass.
A ball of rich, golden light was steadily growing from the spot where the slab stone had been. It spread, its glow emanating from the Earth, until suddenly as if it couldn’t be held any longer, it streaked away in all directions, like a shooting star trailing rippling waves of golden light to the distant horizons.
Paul heard the cries of wonder from the crowd and saw the police clustered in groups, their weapons dangling at their sides, staring in confusion and utter disbelief around them.
It wasn’t just him who’d seen it, he realized, the Magur had been right and he had just witnessed the ley-lines of Europe kick-started back into life.
Paul noticed suddenly that the Agents amongst the police had literally vanished and the helicopters had veered off into the skies beyond the limits of the festival, leaving a refreshing silence in their wake.
Could it be as the Magur had said, that the Earth had moved into the new age of accelerated energy where the Invaders could not follow?
It would explain their miraculous absence, he supposed.
But what had happened to the Magur, he wondered?
Could they have survived the incredible force of the explosion? He doubted it.
Had they sacrificed their lives to help him fulfill his mission? He just didn’t know.
Paul became suddenly aware of the crowd clustered tightly around him, staring down at him in awe. An iphone was pointed into his face, it’s owner gabbling excitedly,
‘I got all of that ... stone circle, spaceship and everything! This is going straight onto youtube.’
He could hear other voices too chattering over each other.
‘Wow! That was far fuckin’ out!’
‘T’as vu ca? C’était énorme quoi?’
‘Was that the acid or what?’
Suddenly Elodie was there, pushing through the throng and kneeling at his side, her eyes seeking his,
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked, pulling him up to his knees. Paul shook his head and her concern turned to delight,
‘You have done it! I was so right to trust you!’ she beamed radiantly at him.
Paul sat up, dazed, smiling with relief, hardly daring to believe he’d really succeeded. His hair and clothes were covered in dust and tiny fragments of granite that had been blasted with him, out of one reality and into another. He reached down to his jumper and picked out a teardrop shaped shard of granite, shot through with a diagonal vein of quartz that had become enmeshed in the weave of the mohair.
As he held it between his trembling fingers he knew that this was Julie’s Christmas present and that, at last,
‘It was time to go home.’
The End
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