Fighting Pax

The guards stopped singing. They too were growing uncomfortable and they stared at the oversized fungi with suspicion. Sporty raised his rifle and tapped one tentatively. A cloud of bloated flies came buzzing from the gills beneath the cap and everyone sprang back.

“We come the wrong way,” Lee declared. “This ain’t takin’ us no place good.”

He was about to signal the others to turn back when a high, squeaky voice began to sing.

“Tra la la, tra la lee.

Who is this that I can see?

Five fine fellows on a strolling spree,

finding their way to merry me.”

On to the path leaped a strange little creature. It was a long-legged goblin, wearing striped woollen stockings under a soft leather tunic, over which was a waistcoat of orange velvet. A hooded cape was fastened under his chin and a pair of pince-nez was balanced on his sharp nose.

It was like an Arthur Rackham illustration come to life. Both eyes were bright green, but one was larger than the other. They gleamed in the gathering dusk and the golden buckles on his pointed brown shoes glinted as he capered in a dainty, twirling dance.

“We shall play some games, but I shall win,

for my name is Nimbelsewskin.

I like to snip and stitch and mend.

Each of you I shall make my friend…”

The four guards opened fire simultaneously – yelling as the AK-47s blasted the goblin back down the path.

When the shooting was over, they were out of breath and smiling at a job well done.

“Oh, you dumb, dumb asswipes,” Lee uttered in shock and disgust.

The guards pulled him over to where the goblin’s body lay across the path and they stared at it with intense curiosity, prodding and nudging it with the toes of their boots.

“Hey, the guy’s dead, OK?” Lee said, suspecting that if one of them had a camera they wouldn’t waste any time in getting snapshots of themselves with their fresh kill. They were so excitable they’d be plastering any such photos all over Twitter and Facebook. But social media didn’t exist here in Mooncaster – or back in North Korea.

“Silver linings,” the boy commented dryly.

He glanced down. The goblin had been about the same height as little Nabi and there was a look of blank surprise on its face. He felt sick and wanted to get away, but the guards were still gawping.

“Dokkaebi!” they exclaimed several times over. “Dokkaebi!”

It was the Korean word for a mischievous sprite. Posh was sceptical, but Sporty whistled through his teeth and his eyes opened wide with amazement. He had always loved those old stories his grandmother had told him when he was very young.

He and the others pointed to the uncanny features, the like of which they’d never encountered, then scrutinised the clothing. The waistcoat lapels were stuck through with a collection of threaded needles of different shapes and sizes and, strapped to one knobbly wrist, was a large and crowded pincushion. Cotton bobbins of various coloured twine had tumbled from the waistcoat’s many pockets and a tiny pair of scissors was strung across the stomach, looping about the gold buttons on a fine chain. A silken tape measure was draped round its neck.

“Congratulations,” Lee said bitterly. “You done murdered some kinda tailor. Guess that explains why you people dress like crud. We done here now? Show over, yeah?”

The guards were satisfied and Sporty was still grinning. They were about to retrace their steps along the path when a new sound came bellowing through the trees.

“What the hell is that?” Lee whispered.

It was a deep, baying howl. None of them had ever heard anything like it before. Some large beast was crying mournfully, back there, behind them.

Even though the efficacy of their rifles had just been proven, the guards didn’t like the sound of whatever this new creature might be. There it was again – a bass lowing like a nightmarish mongrel of cow and bear.

“I don’t think we should go back after all,” Lee said quietly. “Your gats work just fine on midgets, but that thing out there – that sounds way bigger. I don’t wanna be around when you find out there’s some things in this place tougher than Kevlar.”

The guards appeared to understand and agreed, with worried nods.

Leaving the dead goblin behind, they hurried on down the sloping path. The toadstools soon towered over them and mossy roots criss-crossed the way, forming a natural, uneven staircase as the ground sloped ever more sharply. Then, abruptly, the trees and the toadstools opened out and they stumbled down into a wide, grassy glade. The sun was hanging low in the autumn sky, just dipping behind the surrounding treetops, its slanting light drenching everything in a deep amber glow and vibrant purple shadow.

“This damn place is made of weird,” Lee muttered, staring ahead at what stood in the centre.

The guards gripped their rifles a little more tightly as they exclaimed in wonderment.

In the middle of a closely clipped lawn that was freckled with daisies and buttercups, bordered by the vivid colours of hollyhocks, lupins, foxgloves, snapdragons and loosestrife, was a picturesque, circular cottage made from woven hazel twigs and roofed with bark. It was built around three enormous toadstools that reared up between two stone chimneys and whose broad, domed caps provided extra shelter from bad weather. The chimney pots had been fashioned in the form of comical, expressive faces and the smoke that curled from the top of their terracotta heads was pale green and smelled of burnt sugar and fried onions. At the front was a low wicker door and here and there were little windows of leaded glass, whose diamond panes winked in the sun’s failing rays. It was an idealised, child’s vision of a fairy dwelling.

Behind this twee building rose a gnarled and ancient oak, the greatest in the Realm of the Dawn Prince. Its serpentine boughs twisted over the tops of the three toadstools and were heavy with golden leaves. But other things were hanging from those branches. Bundles of garments of every sort – jerkins, hose, scarves, kirtles, cloaks, tunics, hoods and hats – dangled down like cloth fruit.

“Must be laundry day,” Lee muttered. “But that’s gotta be a year’s worth of wardrobe up there.”

He lowered his head, remembering that Charm’s mother had been a laundress in this world. He wished he hadn’t been so consumed by grief after escaping the camp in England. If he had only taken time out to help her deal with her despair, Mrs Benedict might still be alive. Even though he’d dreamed about it most nights since, it was going to be real tough to finally tell Charm her mother was gone, when they were reunited here.

The North Koreans were hesitant about stepping out on to the lawn and venturing near the strange cottage, but they stared, entranced, at the abundant flower borders. They were the loveliest they had seen. Even in Pyongyang there were no blooms to match the intensity and perfect beauty of those growing here. A sea of heavenly perfume flowed out from them and the four members of the People’s Army breathed deeply as memories of their childhood began to stir and they recalled things that had been suppressed or forgotten and dreams that had been forbidden. Even Posh’s perennial scowl lifted.

Another roar behind them wrenched them all back to the present and they hurried over the grass.

Lee wasn’t happy about approaching the cottage either. There was no telling who or what might live there. The woods in this Kingdom were full of peculiar creatures that weren’t even mentioned in Austerly Fellows’ book and he’d learned that the most innocent and sweetest-looking places could harbour the worst dangers. But what other choice was there? As they crossed the lawn, he strained and concentrated, trying once more to return them back to the real world, but it was no use.

Stepping on to a central path made from wide, flat stones, they passed beneath the shadow of the radiating oak branches and moved cautiously closer to the cottage.

There was no movement behind those leaded windows; no sharp little face peered out through the half-open door. The stillness and silence were even more unsettling.

“Hey!” Lee called. “Anyone in there? We just wanna find out where we is. We got ourselves lost.”

There was no answer. Sporty Spice was gazing up at the laundry dangling down from above. He said something to the others and they too stared upwards.

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