Chapter 10

Krill, on the other hand, was having to make a conscious effort not to age. In the human world, he needed to actually think about it. In elfen lands he could just allow his mood to guide the aging. If he liked an age, he would stay there until he was ready to move on.

Now he was struggling a little, he had to concentrate as the earth magic of humans started to impact on him. It was like being surrounded by people with minor ailments, you have to concentrate on not getting their sniffles and snuffles. He had to actively think about not getting older. Or perhaps it was that here aging was the natural direction that you had to control, in elfenland it was the opposite.

He had no intention of aging much. He had enjoyed the old women with their flabby bottoms, large pendulous dugs, hairy faces. He had enjoyed plumbing their surprised catchas and delighted in the pleasure they erupted with, but he also detected the sore muscles and bones they had. If that was the result of aging, then no, he was keen to forgo it for a while at least.

The school party had been an interesting experience, the teacher had been so grateful and the pupils so open; as they got older it seemed that such experiences would be less easy, they would be more guarded. And yet others had passed his way and learnt from him. Kathryn often thought of him later, and nearly threw up her job to go back to that valley, but she was drawn back to her human life. Still, she had the magic in her now, and her partners always found her a little more enervating than they might have expected.

The sisters were orphans. Their uncle and aunt had moved to Australia and Los Angeles respectively and when they were orphaned, neither could be contacted (John was in the outback helping with the sheep and shagging a Sheila of Barbie-esque proportions, he would not have returned anyway; Linda had just dropped off the map). So, at eleven and twelve., they were pulled out of their school (selective, middle class) and dropped into the school near the city orphanage (working class, tough, unsympathetic, 30% of the pupils had only one parent, plenty of the others were with a ‘parent’ who wasn’t their real parent). It was a very tough few years. By the time they were fifteen and fourteen, Ang and Deng (Angela and Demelza) were tougher, their middle class edges rubbed off, but still hated their life. They opted to run. It wasn’t unusual. Sadly the security was not great so plenty of children found they could get out, get picked up, get groomed, get fucked at an early age. Ang and Deng still remembered a better home life than father and mother shooting up in the front room (though their mother was addicted to the middle class equivalents – tranquilizers), they just ran.

They ended up away from the city, in a small market town near the moors. They had run out of money, run out of food. They were just on the cusp of begging, or offering themselves. Krill came along at the right time. “Hello”

They looked up, was he a pervert? They’d had a couple of propositions in the city before they got out; he certainly looked weird, but not in a pervert ‘lick my bum you slag’ kind of way, more in a ‘peace man, it’s all cool’ way. “Hello” said Ang, she was a year older and felt the responsibility of being ‘in charge’. She had to keep Deng safe.

“You look sad, or hungry. Which is it?” Considering the number of people who hadn’t even noticed this pair of lost souls, this was very perceptive. Before Ang could reply enigmatically, Deng just blurted:

“BOTH”

“Café? Sausage and chips? Not sure what the sausage is made of. You don’t look like vegetarians though, and their pies are even more questionable. Road kill perhaps, still, that’s not a bad use is it?” He was testing, probing. He could see they knew better things. Ang looked suspicious, Deng looked hungry. “I’m Krill, no harm can come to you in a café can it?”

They went in, three mugs of tea, six rounds of toast and a double plate of chips. He was pleased to see they avoided the sausage. He could sense the pain of the animals in those sausages. He also knew the pies were from a similar torture factory; he would have preferred road kill, but you only got those pies at Maxies in the Upper Farland. The chips disappeared under a flood of tomato sauce, and then disappeared from the plate.

“So ... where from? Where going? Not in uniform, so not skivving from school I’m guessing. You look hunted. I know that look. Seen it a lot in people in this world” odd way to talk “Relax, I’m not the child catcher.” Really odd! He’d picked up ChittyChittyBangBang in the library and sat and read it from end to end. He hadn’t realised until the end that it was just a story, and the notion of a child catcher had embedded itself. He was pretty sure that this world could indeed stoop that low.

“We, umm... [munch, munch] ... we’re on holiday... [munch, burp] excuse me!”

“Okay, you’re on holiday. More chips? Tea? Tunnock’s Wafer? Sure? I’m having one” Krill had discovered that Tunnock’s Wafers were the most sublime confectionary in the two worlds. He spent idle hours wondering if he could get Tunnock to deliver to elfenlands. “Yes, I thought you looked like a discerning person” he smiled. He meant it, they laughed. Tunnocks – a remembrance from a happier childhood.

“We, [chew] do [chew] need [chew] somewhere to stay” said Ang, hesitantly, why was she telling this stranger? But then what choice had she?

“And we got no money” added Deng

Two people, one an elf and one a girl with memories of polite speech in a good school, said “And we have no money!” they looked at each other and laughed. Deng responded “And we have got no money” The two older people laughed again.

“I have a place, you can stay. Don’t look so worried. No obligation. But it is a little way out. You look exhausted. There is a hotel nearby, why don’t I get you a room there for a night and collect you tomorrow?”

He checked them in to the Chequered Arms, the room was ancient, crooked, and misshapen; it had a lovely large (lumpy) old bed. The two girls went up, thinking ‘this is it, social services will be here in the morning’. They undressed, showered, fell into bed and watched TV, and fell asleep five minutes later. Luckily the TV had an auto switch off after an hour unless you pressed the ‘Okay’ key on the remote. At seven the next day the room telephone rang. Ang nearly didn’t answer, thinking ‘we can run down the fire escape’, but she did. “Hello? Miss, umm Ang? I have a man here to collect you”

They left before breakfast, and started walking. “We can eat when you get to your holiday home.” He saw one checking her phone. “If I was on the run, I wouldn’t check my phone. I understand they can be traced. But then, of course, you two are on holiday” At first Krill had thought phones were magic, the communication device that allowed talking over vast distances, but it clearly possessed the owners and made them slaves. There was no signal in the valley. He had heard people say this. The walk took twice as long as usual. These girls were tough, but unfit. They tried to keep going, but they needed rests. He relented and gave them some Na-bread. It was a yeast bread with herbs and something that gave you energy; and it was not the nicest taste until you got used to it. “Eat, it will help. Trust me.” Ang wondered if it was poisoned, but shrugged, they were in his hands now.

Down the track, Krill told them the story of the school bus careering down to the bottom, it made them laugh. Then, at the bottom they stopped dead. A rabbit hopped over, sniffer Deng’s shoe and hopped away. She started to cry.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ang “What’s wrong? I’m sure we’re safe”

“Can’t you feel it? This place ... it’s perfect. It’s perfe...” she tailed off as a fox came to the stream, lapped up some water and went off again. The rabbit had ignored it. She was still crying.

“Let her cry, it’s washing out the pain. You will too in time. Here is a neutral place. All are safe. All, you included” Then he wheeled round at a bark. A huge hunting dog was leaping towards him. It looked like it could scoop up a rabbit and swallow in a single bite. A couple of birds flew out of the way, and the same young rabbit looked up, momentarily thought its end had come. The dog just cleared the rabbit, and then leaped at the man. He fell to the ground and rolled with the dog, laughing. “Crena toLit manuptila sav-ha Noti!” One of his dogs had returned. Deng could see he was different, he was big like an Irish Wolfhound, heavy like a mastiff, and playful like a puppy. Krill got up and introduced him to the two girls. Deng reached out without a thought, Ang reached out half expecting to lose a hand.

Back at the Chequered Arms, a police car had arrived several hours after the urgent call had been put in. The description of the two girls had matched two who had gone missing from the home. Since it was in the next county over, it had taken time for the electronic tendrils to match up and dispatch a car, and it hadn’t been treated as urgent. There was no doubt it was the girls, they checked the phone records and traced the route out of the town. Then it went cold. You had to be looking for the mill to see it; the assumption was they were heading over the moors, back towards the city. So the search resumed there. They never knew how close they came to being reunited with the seeds of their eventual destruction.

“Here, you can bathe in the pool if you want. Or there is a waterfall inside.” A waterfall? Perhaps he was foreign and meant a shower? He showed them; no, he meant a waterfall. The toilet was just peculiar. They had always had a little lockable cubicle. This one had several holes in the plank (for more friendly use, Krill had found this was not usually the done thing) and felt like you were shitting in a forest or a field. Still, it was good to shit in a place that wasn’t smeared with excrement and rude words. Ang stripped off and pulled the lever that redirected the waterfall down the wall to be a torrent on her head.