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- Herausgeber: Knights Of
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Serie: Vivi Conway
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
The first book in a fantastical series that combines a quest for magic and friendship with Welsh mythology and a pinch of science, all within a contemporary setting. The lake has been calling to twelve-year-old Vivi Conway. On the day she and her Mams will move from Wales to London, she sneaks out to investigate what is calling her there. Instead of a quiet swim, she finds Excalibur (much smaller than she expected), a ferocious monster (much scarier in real life than in her mythology books), a new friend (which she doesn't want at all) called Dara and a ghostly dog named Gelert (who can talk.) Gelert insists that Vivi is part of a magical group of children known as enaids who share the souls of witches from legend and must protect the world from being taken over by the evil King Arawn of the Otherworld. Oh, and now she can magically control water. With a little extra help from spiky Avery and sweet-hearted Chia, Vivi must come to terms with her magical destiny and be brave enough to embrace true friendship.
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v
For my parents, Aliy and Keith, who showed me the stories and let me run wild in them.
vi
Contents
Chapter One
The problem with growing up listening to bedtime stories about monsters, magic and myth is that you don’t really question it when a lake summons you.
The lake, my lake, is calling to me, and has been for about a week. It’s a pull in my chest, a gnawing in my brain. I couldn’t tell you howI know it’s the lake, but I feel it in my bones when I’m awake, and it’s woken me up several times, as though someone has been calling my name.
And the worst part of it all is that it doesn’t weird me out. That much.
Maybe my understanding of what is “normal” is a little, erm, warped. But you don’t grow up autistic and weird without realising your version of normal is quite different from everyone else’s.2
Mumma’s stories definitely haven’t helped there either.
A sensible person might question why a whole load of water would be almost-talking to them, never mind how that could even happen. And I get it, it’s weird. But, somehow, I know I have to be there. To listen, maybe? To find … something. I don’t know. Nothing is clear.
I just know that I have to go and say goodbye to the lake. Like the way you know when it’s going to rain, or when a cake will turn out just right. Mumma always calls those feelings “kitchen witchery”, but I always thought it was just luck or something like that.
A goodbye is probably all it wants, right?
It all started the day Mam came back from London, having set up the new house ready for us to move into. The Mums had decided we’d move away from Wales at the start of summer. Mumma’s work had been trying to promote her to the London office for years, but she didn’t want to uproot me when I’d finally got comfortable. Then, things went bad.
Kelly Keane and I had been best friends since we were in nursery and I hadn’t needed more friends, because I had Kelly. But then she met Danielle, and then Paul came along too. Neither of them liked me. And soon, 3neither did Kelly. At first, I kept going to school, but everything quickly went from bad to worse …
After I missed the last three months of Year Six, the Mums decided a fresh start would be a good thing for us, and by that point I was so tired I just said yes. I would be starting secondary school along with everyone else in September, but not in Wales. In London. But being the new kid would probably work in my favour. If everyone already had their friend groups from primary school, maybe no one would bother me. I hoped so.
Anyway, that night, the Mums and I sat around our craggy old table eating peanut butter noodles when a huge rainstorm appeared from nowhere, rattling the windows of our old farmhouse. There’d even been flooding throughout the valley, so the farmers had had to go out and rescue their sheep, moving them to safety.
And ever since that storm, ever since I realised we really were leaving, I’ve heard the call. It’s kind of taken over my brain, clouding out any other thought.
I had thought, to start with, that it was just the usual anxiety about things changing. My therapist Dr. May says that most autistic people struggle with change and newness, and we’d spent the summer 4talking through my worries about moving and having to start going to school again.
But, as I lie here at five in the morning on the day we move house (and country). I can finally, reallyhear it. It’s a half-heard whisper. Comehere.Comelook.
I have to go, and that means sneaking out before the Mums wake up.
I’ve never snuck out before. We live miles from the next village, surrounded by farmland in the gap between towns, the sort of house you pass on the way to somewhere else. Plus, I really can’t lie. My face always gives away exactly what I’m thinking, and the Mums can spot a half-truth from across a room. I don’t like lies, even the ones that are supposed to be kind to spare people’s feelings when the truth isn’t very nice. If I insisted I had to go, the Mums probably would take me to the lake. But moving day means a schedule that probably shouldn’t be messed with, and they both seem really stressed out – Mumma keeps doing this weird pasted-on smile every time I ask her something, while Mam just spends all the time making lists and aggressively chewing gum. It just makes more sense for me to go while they’re asleep.
Slipping out from under the covers, I lightly avoid 5the creakiest floorboards around my bed. In an old farmhouse, that’s easier said than done. The light outside is a golden dawn, the weather finally clearing. I empty my backpack out onto the bed and cover the things I had packed for the car with the duvet. It isn’t a convincing person-in-bed substitute, but it’s the best I can do given all my stuff is in boxes. Thanks to Mam’s trusty black Sharpie and slightly intense moving organisation system, I find my rash guard and swimming shorts quickly, throwing them into my backpack. If I’m going to go all the way up there, I may as well swim too.
There’s no point changing into today’s clothes and getting them potentially mucky, so I just pull on my warmest knitted jumper and bright raincoat over my pyjamas. Hopefully no one will spot me in luminous yellow; in Wales you can never be too prepared for rain.
I creep out, and go down the stairs on my bum, just to be safe. All the rugs that usually cover every floor are rolled up in tubes downstairs, so every step echoes around the empty hallways.
Something gets caught in my hair. I leap away, holding my breath so I don’t yell, and bat whatever it is away from my face. Squinting through the darkness 6and hoping I’ve not just destroyed a spider’s hard work – I’d feel bad about ruining their webs, but also would rather not have their packed lunch flies in my bird’s nest of hair – I see that luckily it’s just the last of Mam’s lavender, picked from the hillside and hanging up to dry. I let out the breath, and pad through the empty kitchen.
My muddy yellow wellies wait at the back door ready to be slung in the boot of the car, and I wriggle them on, wincing at the cool damp inside. The big bronze key is in its usual place on the spice shelf, even though that’s now totally empty. It turns easily in the lock, and I close the door behind me with one quick, quiet tug.
I find my bike leaning against the side of the house, and walk it down our drive, just in case I immediately crash loudly into something while trying to be stealthy.
Helmet on. Bike light lit. Mysterious expedition to a lake in the wee hours of the morning without any supervision is officially go.
The roads are completely empty, though I can already hear Mr. Bevan, one of the farmers, starting up his tractor somewhere in the distance. It’s not quiet in the country, though everyone thinks that. Sheep call to each other as they wake up, and insects 7buzz. Birds sing from the hedgerows that border the winding roads. A bat flits through the air ahead of me, catching the last night-time bugs before it goes to roost. I want to slow down, to watch the nature I grew up with wake up for one last time, but I can’t get caught out here. Everyone knows everyone around here, and I’m the only kid who ever goes up to the lake, so anyone awake at this time would know that it’s me, that weird scruffy Conway girl. No one else from school goes up there unless they’re dragged by their parents; they all say I’m some kind of pond-loving weirdo.
It probably is a bad idea, but once I’m away from the house, pedalling hard, I stop caring. I just want to be in the lake one last time. My lake, which is actually called Llyn (Arian), is bright blue ice-cold crystal water and sits at the foot of a group of mountains. I’ve been swimming there at least once a week since I was small, when Mumma got really into outdoor swimming. One year she made us go on Boxing Day when snow had runoff from the peaks, but that was kind of torturous and luckily never repeated.
Soon I’m off the road and onto the walker’s path, which leads up to the lake. I breathe a sigh of relief that I’ve passed no one, or at least I’m pretty sure 8I haven’t. Years of cycling here means I make quick work of it – I know where all the potholes are, where it gets muddiest, where rabbits like to dash across.
But also, the pull in my brain seems to be getting louder, turning into a buzz. And the closer I get, the more frantic it sounds. The pulling-buzzing-drumming makes my legs churn faster.
Over the rise, glistening in the morning light, is my lake. Turquoise and gold-light dappled, the clearest water I’ve ever seen. In the low light, it looks lorded over by the peaks of mountains on three sides. People around here say it was a seat of power for giants, maybe even their throne. The air is so fresh.
An ache blooms in my chest. This is the last time I’ll be here for … I can’t even imagine how long.
I don’t know how to be a London person. In Wales, I can follow the seasons with the changing colours, and when the wind blows the right way I can taste salt from the sea, sharp and sour on my tongue. And I know the land, because of Mumma’s stories. When I was small, Mumma used to take me out walking, just the two of us. The night before, she would tell me a story set in the place we were going to visit, and the next day we would look for proof 9of the myths. I was so determined that one day I’d find a door in a tree trunk, a keyhole in a stone, even a hidden castle. I always hoped I’d find a whole other world, that I’d discover magic. That I’d be part of something bigger than just this.
But now I’m leaving, so I guess that hope has to stay here. I’ll leave it in the water.
I lay my bike on the grass, throwing off my rucksack with it. No one is around, so I drop my pyjamas in a crumpled heap and slip into my swimming kit.
Getinthewater.Goon.
It must be my own thoughts, but … it doesn’t sound like me. I shake it off and stand at the water’s edge in the muddy sand.
Some people like to test the temperature with a toe before they get in, but I think the best way is to just stride in purposefully. So, I do, breathing deeply in shock as the icy water laps against my belly. The water is chilled by the night.
A little way out, I float on my back, and every muscle relaxes. The water threads through my mussed-up hair.
And finally, the pulling starts to dull, like a released breath. Relieved that my brain feels finally clear, I dive down below the surface, kicking hard with my legs. 10My tummy skims along the lake bed. I love seeing how far I can go on a single breath.
Just as I’m about to surface for air, I see a moving shadow in the distance. A quick dart, like a fish. A bigfish. I didn’t know there were any in here.
I break the surface and wipe away the hair matted on my face. What was that?
I tread water, watching for any movement. A fluttering feeling grows in my stomach as I realise everything is really, really quiet. The gnawing in my head is gone. And so are all the sounds of the country. No birdsong, no insects, no sheep.
Across the lake, the water starts to stir. It’s … a wave? Waves don’t just appear in lakes.
My heart pounds in my chest. Maybe coming here was a mistake. I should get out, quickly.
Before I can finish the thought, the wave grows, white-tipped, a tsunami ready to drown me.
And inside the wave, I can see the shadow. It is much, much bigger than I thought. Whatever is in the water with me is definitely not a fish. Its shape is all wrong.
There’s a monster in the lake, and it’s coming right towards me.
Chapter Two
I swim as fast as I can towards the nearest bank.
No one knows I’m here.
It’s just me, and a monster.
I pump my arms furiously, trying to keep the rhythm of my front crawl. I was never the fastest in swimming races. Mam says I’m built for stamina, not speed. Not ideal when you’re trying to escape something chasing you.
How naive I had been to hope for keyholes and portals and secret castles. Maybe a magical school, or a friendly talking animal. Of course I’d end up with a monster that seems keen on drowning me. I take back every silly hope for magic. I take it all back.
I turn my head to breathe, and a heavy wave lands on top of me. I crash down through the water, slamming 12hard against the lake bed. My body is battered by the current, pushing me down into the muck one moment, then dragging me slowly backwards the next; towards whatever is headed towards me. I scramble in the dirt, trying to right myself, but the current twists me round.
Stay calm, Vivi. I press my lips together – if I breathe in a big gulp of lake water, it’s all over.
With one big push I’m upright and kicking off the floor, eyes on the shimmering surface. It’s so close. My lungs burn, my pulse thundering in my ears. I need air fast.
My fingers break through to the air, just as something grabs my ankle and pulls me down sharply. Back on the muddy lake bed, I look back to see a churning rope-current of water wrapped around my leg.
It can’t be real. Water doesn’t move like it’s alive.
The rope drags me by the leg, back towards the deep dark cold of the lake. It’s sharp, digging into my skin with an icy-cold pain.
Dark spots appear in my vision, and I know there’s hardly any time left before my body is going to try to breathe or I pass out.
My fingers rake through the thick black mud, 13grabbing onto weak knotted weeds and smooth glass bottles that give way. I can barely see anything from the dirt and the waves and how quickly I’m being dragged, but suddenly there’s a tall glint of grey and I grab it tightly.
And somehow it holds.
The rope tugs insistently at my leg, but I don’t move.
The silt settles in the water, and I realise what I’m clutching isn’t a pillar of rock. It’s a sword, stabbed right into the lake-muck. I don’t have time to wonder why there’s a sword in here. My arm muscles scream as I hold on against the insistent yanking on my leg.
One problem solved – I’m no longer moving. But I’m still definitely about to run out of air. I can taste iron, where I’ve bitten too hard on the inside of my mouth to keep it closed and drawn blood. I’ve got one chance to escape.
Thesword.Usethesword.
The words ring in my ears. A whispering voice through the pounding of my own heart.
It’s my only option, and I don’t have time to wonder who might be talking to me. Mysterious messages were how I got in this mess in the first place.
I rip the sword out of the mud, and, sensing the 14lack of resistance, the rope yanks me back.
With the last bit of my strength, I swipe the blade through the rushing current at the water-rope around my ankle. To my surprise, it cuts through and the rope vanishes.
I’m free.
I tuck the sword, hilt first, into the back of my swimming shorts and swim hard, breaking the surface in seconds. The sweet air is delicious but stings my sore lungs.
Unfortunately, I really am in the centre of the lake. I have a long way to swim.
The water thrums, and I swim as fast as I can, frantic energy coursing through my body. I’ve made something very, very angry, but I’m not sticking around to find out what it is.
The thrums become waves quickly, knocking my body back and forth. I fight hard to swim through the roiling water, diving under the waves whenever I can.
Keepgoing!Keepgoing!
Isurewill, I think, relieved that the voice seems invested in me staying alive. I keep powering forward, and soon my foot touches something solid.
Scrabbling to my feet, I run – but there’s more resistance 15than feels normal. The water slips past me, like sand in an hourglass.
Don’tlookback.
I cry out in relief as my feet hit grass, and I limp towards my things.
But then, because I am quite possibly a complete donkey, I look backwards. Where I was just swimming is damp sand, covered in sagging plants and fish drowning in the air. What remains of the lake is now a swirling whirlpool.
And, right in the middle of it is a long reptilian snout.
Unfortunately, I know exactly what it is.
An afanc. Flooder of towns and murderer of maidens. Or at least, that’s what all Mumma’s stories said. Think of the most terrifying, gigantic alligator you can, and you’d be halfway there. Dark green scales that shine in the dawn light, and a long muscular tail, flat and wide like a beaver’s, which spins the water faster and faster. It looks right at me and I swear it smiles, baring a snarl of barbed-wire teeth.
It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, and unfortunately it seems like it really, really wants to kill me.
Our eyes are locked on each other, and time slows down as I rewind Mumma’s stories in my memory. 16How did they defeat it? There was one where some huge oxen dragged it up a mountain to a lake … after singing it to sleep. That’s not going to work. My voice is more like the wails of a cat being given a bath, rather than the melody of a beautiful maiden.
It opens its mouth wider and roars a horrible nailon-chalkboard sound that echoes around the peaks. There’s absolutely no cover between me and the afanc. It has a straight shot right towards me, and I don’t think there’s any way I can outrun it, though I keep walking backwards slowly and steadily.
Wait! Peredur, the Knight of King Arthur, slew an afanc by cutting off its head while he held an adder stone that turned him invisible. I might not have invisibility, but I do have a sword.
Freeing it from my shorts, I clutch it so hard in my hands that my knuckles turn white. Somehow, the grip fits perfectly in my small shaking hands. It’s short, stubby, and green with algae.
The sword hums in my hand, and I realise it’s the very same sound that has been rattling around in my head for two weeks. But now it’s softer, like it’s saying hellorather than gnawing at me. Is this what drew me here?17
As if it heard me thinking about stabbing it, the afanc opens its maw and shoots out more water tentacles, throwing them like spears. I dodge, jump, and scrabble as several whip past my head. As I scramble to my feet, realising I’ve leapt right back into the slippery, damp sand of the lake bed, a long tentacle of water whips me hard in the chest. I fly through the air and land hard in oozing black muck. The sword skids out of reach, landing in the grass.
If I thought not being able to breathe underwater was bad, I’m now completely winded. My sides screech as I gasp. I can’t get enough air, which is an unfortunate running theme today.
All foolish notions of beheading the afanc leave me as I cough, spitting up a gob of bloody goo. Plan B – getting out of here preferably without dying – is back on. I stagger to my feet, wincing in agony, but as I step towards the sword I fall to my knees.
Keep going!
I can’t stand, so I grit my teeth and drag myself on all fours, feeling like I’m climbing a mountain rather than scuttling through muck. My limbs shake with effort, and more water spears slide across my path, missing me by centimetres.18
It’s mocking me. It knows I can’t stop it.
The afanc bellows, and the sound feels like eighteen people are speaking all at once. The sound is so wrong that I’m dizzy with it. It echoes through my head, battering against my skull. My brain aches with it, and I can barely stay conscious.
This is it. I’m alone, and I’m going to die here.
Moving, and all the change, doesn’t feel quite so scary anymore.
I close my eyes and think of the Mums. I’msorry.I’msorryforthis,foreverything.
Salty tears and snot and blood mix on my lips.
“Get up! Come on, get up!”
Someone is shouting at me. Actually shouting at me, not a disembodied voice in my mind.
I’m not alone.
I open my mouth to reply, but a hacking cough rattles my body and up comes more water. Before I can move, another water tentacle glides across the surface of the water and winds up my leg like creeping bramble. It tightens, digging into my skin. Crushing my leg.
Angry heat burns through my chest, as I screech in pain.
I refuse to die at the hands, or claws, of what is 19basically a giant beaver.
Fury floods my body, and I scream.
“GET OFF ME!”
And, to my surprise, it actually does. The tentacle collapses into water droplets, seeping into the ground. To my even greater surprise, so does the whirlpool. Half of it spills back into being a lake, and the afanc screeches with fury as its tail tries to whip it back into shape. It screeches again, a sound I feel in my blood, and I swoon like I’m going to faint.
“Woah, that was neat!”
Suddenly, the person who shouted at me is by my side, helping me stand. They must be about my age, but where I’m small and chubby, they are broad and tall. Thick auburn hair flops near their bright seagreen eyes.
“Hiya, I’m Dara,” they say. “And this is Gelert.”
At that, a huge grey dog appears next to me. It’s still within the realm of dog sizes, unlike the enormous afanc across the water, but it’s far bigger than any of the farmers’ sheepdogs.
“Gel, get them to safety. And nobody touch the water!” Dara barks, running full pelt towards the afanc.20
The dog takes my rash guard in its mouth and drags me up the beach towards the sand. It’s so strong and I’m so weak that I just stagger after it.
“No, stop!” I try to scream, but I’m so weak that nothing comes out.
I’m barely awake, on the edge of passing out. My feet touch grass, and I collapse onto my bum as the dog stops dragging me, satisfied that we’re far enough away.
In the distance, I see a tiny Dara rush to the edge of the water that fell out of the whirlpool.
And, with a great yell that echoes against the mountain peaks, they plunge their hands deep into the lake and everything around us lights up.
The air turns royal purple, and the afanc shakes violently as the light touches it.
No, not light.
Electricity.
With one last bone-rattling cry, it falls. Defeated, it sinks into the deep.
In a blink of an eye, as though nothing happened, the lake is as it’s always been. The water reaches the shore again, no longer tied up in a whirlpool. It shines azure blue in the brighter morning light.
And with that, everything goes black.
Chapter Three
I hear birdsong.
My eyes flicker open, but everything is still blurry from the muck and water.
“Oh Gelert, they’re awake,” I hear my saviour, Dara, say.
I rub my eyes clear with the back of my hand, hoping that it is less dirty than my disgustingly muddy fingers. Slowly, everything begins to sharpen. I’m still at the lake, and the lake looks normal again.
“Here, drink this.” Dara holds out a can of lemonade. Beads of condensation glisten on the metal. I never want fizzy drinks before lunch, never mind breakfast, but after almost drowning it’s exactly what I need.
I ease myself up to sitting, wincing with the ache 22in my chest, and take the freshly opened can. The sickly-sweet sugar floods through my battered body.
“Thanks for this,” I pant. “And for saving me.”
“All in a day’s work,” they say, a smile reaching their sparkling eyes. Their cheeks and nose are pink with the cool morning air.
A sharp pain rushes through my head, and everything starts to come back to me. An afanc. And purple light? The sword. Did it all really happen? I press my hands firmly against my temples and, after a moment, the pain begins to ease.
Dara pulls a blanket out of their backpack and wraps it around my shoulders. The rough wool is warm against my cold, clammy skin.
“Rescuing people from monsters at the crack of dawn sounds like a weird job,” I say, before taking another long slow gulp of lemonade.
“Well, someone’s got to do it.” It comes out flat, like a tired truth, but I figure they are joking along with me, and that I’m too tired to get it, so I smile back.
“I’m Vivi by the way,” I say.
“Hi Vivi,” they say. “Are you alright? Not hurt I hope?”
“My ribs,” I say, with a wheeze. My sides are tight, 23and ache with each breath. After a beat, I add, “Are you?”
“Nah, I’m fine. I think you’d annoyed it enough that it wasn’t paying enough attention to me.”
“It was an afanc, wasn’t it?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“Why was it an afanc?”
“Why was it here? I don’t understand what just happened to me …”
They run their fingers through their damp hair. “It’s a long story.”
There’s something about the way they say it that makes me think I don’t want to hear it. Perhaps if I just get up and leave, I can pretend this never happened.
Go home. Wait, home. Moving.Oh no, how long have I been here?
“What time is it?” I ask.
They glance down at the shiny chrome watch on their wrist. “Almost seven.”
“Urgh, I’ve got to get home,” I moan. I try to stand, but my legs tremble with the effort.
“No, please,” they say, reaching towards me with 24arms outstretched. “Sit down. Rest. We’ll help you get home once you’ve got your strength.”
I give in. There is no way I can get home on my own right now. “Okay,” I concede.
“Do you live far from here?”
“My house is the big blue one in the valley. Mam decided it should stand out so we can always find our way home.”
“That’s cute.”
“It is,” I say, with a pang in my chest. I won’t be looking for a blue house any more. “Do you live around here?”
They shake their head. “No. Just visiting.”
Visiting where, I think. And why? This bit of Wales isn’t easy to get to in the daytime, never mind before most of the country is awake.
My head throbs again.
“Wait, what do you mean we? And wasn’t there a dog here?”
And in front of me, as though I had summoned it, appears a dog. Like, right out of thin air.
“I’m dreaming. I must be dreaming,” I mutter, pinching at the skin on my hand sharply. But I’m not dreaming. 25
“Gelert,” chides Dara. “You’re not supposed to do that in front of new people. Look, you’ve freaked her out.”
The dog seems to shrug his great shoulders, then yawns in a way that shows off his huge white teeth and bright pink tongue.
One year when we had the flu, Mam and I watched all of Crufts and since then, I’ve remembered all the dog breeds. This dog is an enormous shaggy Irish Wolfhound, with long legs and huge doe eyes nestled in silver-grey fur.
What Crufts didn’t prepare me for, was the possibility that it might talk.
“Eh, let off, will you?” he moans to Dara, before turning back to me. “What? You want me to introduce myself or something? Alright, I’m Gelert.”
A talking dog.
An afanc.
Someone with magical light powers.
This is real, somehow. Things from Mumma’s stories, but actually happening to me.
Like the stories were true all along.
I’m torn. The bit of me that loves the stories buzzes with excitement; the part that was longing for a new, 26quieter, life is getting ready to run.
Normally I’d hold out a hand for a dog to sniff, so they can decide in their own time if they want to come closer. But this dog just spoke to me. How are you supposed to greet a talking dog?
I can’t believe I ever wanted a talking animal companion. The reality is just … too weird.
“But … whoare you? Why are you here? What is going on?”
“Gelert. I did say it, didn’t I mun?”
The dog’s accent is Welsh, but I can’t place where he could be from. It’s thick, all rolled Rs and dropped Hs.
“Do you think she hit her head? Maybe she’s coming over all silly, like. ARE YOU ALRIGHT GIRL?” He shouts very slowly.
I start to cry. I didn’t even know there were talking dogs, and now there’s one yelling at me.
“Argh Gelert, you’re so rude,” Dara hisses, passing me a pack of tissues from their bag. I take one and blow my nose loudly.
The dog sits, and haughtily turns his snout away from us. “Well now, I didn’t think she’d bat an eye at me chatting after the calonnau and all this mess 27up here.” Here comes out like ‘yurr’.
“I hadn’t gotten to that yet! You’re mucking it all up,” they whine, narrowing their eyes. “I told you not to leave.”
“Someone had to check old croc-face was dead.”
“And is it?”
“Disappeared.” Gelert sniffs.
“So does that mean it is or it isn’t dead?”
They bicker for a little longer, and I’m so tired I don’t even hear what they’re saying. That happens a lot to me; if there are multiple sounds at once, or if I’m feeling too tired, my brain just doesn’t process it. They stop for long enough that my brain manages to catch up, so I hear when Dara says, “Sorry, I probably should have led with thedogtalksandisagrumpyguts.”
“I’ll give you grumpy guts,” mutters the dog, who disappears. A few blinks later, he returns. In his mouth is the sword from the lake.
He lays it down at my feet. The blade is silver, beneath all the algae and lake grime. The grip is decorated in vines and flowers, and, as I pick off the muck with a fingernail, I find an engraving of a dragon at the bottom.
“I wonder whose sword this is,” I murmur.28
“I know the answer,” says the dog smugly.
“Gelert,” warns Dara.
“I’ll be gentle,” he says. “Who owns it is a bit complicated as it stands. But I can tell you it’s called Excalibur.”
“Excalibur?” I gasp, turning the sword over. It hums in my hands as I inspect it. “Excalibur as in King Arthur’s sword?”
“Aye, that’s the one.”
“How do I have King Arthur’s sword? Why was it here?” I whisper.
“Do you know much about Excalibur?” asks Dara gently.
“Bits. I’ve seen the Disney version of TheSwordintheStone, and Mumma’s told me a few local stories, but she says there’s different versions of Arthur in different countries.”
The dog stands and begins to slowly pace back and forth in front of me. “Well, the first bit to know is that Excalibur isn’t the sword that was stuck in that blinking great rock, so you can forget about that. That sword got lost in a dual against King Pellinore, very early on, like. And so, because he didn’t have a sword any more, Arthur went to speak to the Gwraig Annwn.”29
“Wait, do you mean water fairies?” I ask, remembering the illustrations in Mumma’s books.
He pauses, watching me. A tufted eyebrow slowly raises. “I was getting to that,” he huffs.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“They are not ‘water fairies’,” he huffs. “Gwraig Annwn are aquatic, look a bit like you humans, and can pass between our world and the world of Other.”
“I always thought they were like mermaids,” I say, trying to remember which stories involved them, but my head just spins.
“No, that’s a morgen,” he sniffs. “You know when you’ve got a morgen because they reek.”
Something catches my eye. Through Dara’s hands runs a thread of purple spark, weaving between their fingers, bright against their white skin. Our eyes meet, and the spark disappears.
Gelert loudly coughs and resumes his lecture. “A Gwraig Annwn spoke to Arthur, and was so impressed with him, like, that she gave him a sword fit for a king. That was Nimuë. Some people call her the Lady of the Lake.”
“And Arthur’s Knights returned the sword to her when he died, through this lake,” I finish.30
The dog nods. “Yes … I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that. But, now it’s come to you.”
“But why do I have it? No one’s given it to me,” I say. “I mean, I did hear someone calling to me, kind of.”
“Someone calling to you?” Dara asks.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. I’ve been hearing it for two weeks.”
Dara and the dog share a look that I can’t decipher.
“What?” I ask.
“Err, this might be hard to get your head around,” begins Dara slowly. “But you have the soul of the Lady of the Lake.”
“What do you mean I haveit?” I ask, goosebumps rising on my skin. I tap a pattern on my goose-pimpled thigh with my sword-less hand, trying to shuffle the nervous energy rushing through me.
“It’s kind of like rebirth but not entirely. Like we share their spirit … their heart? We don’t fully know the ins and outs and I don’t think we ever will. It’s magic.”
“Magic?”
Dara nods as the words sink into my skin.
“So you’re saying I am her?”
“Not quite. Kind of. A bit,” Dara says. “It’s complicated. 31You’re her calon.”
“Calon,” I say, sounding it out. My stomach flips and fizzing hot anxiety rushes through me, as I try to understand what I’m being told.
“That’s what we call ourselves anyway. Or what Gelert told me we do.”
“How do you know it’s me?”
Dara points to the sword clutched in my hands. “That’s your talisman. It carries the spell that did all this. All calon have one.”
A cool shiver runs down my back, and all my hair stands on end. Mumma’s stories are full of talismans; magical objects that hold great power. Suddenly, I don’t want to hold this sword quite as much. And yet, I can’t put it down.
“How can this even be King Arthur’s sword? It’s the right size for me, but I’m tiny compared to like a huge warrior man,” I mutter, as though the logical inconsistency will soothe the anxiety rattling my bones.
“It’s magic, isn’t it? Not even of this world. It doesn’t have to obey the rules you know,” scoffs Gelert. “Wouldn’t be very useful if you couldn’t lift it, would it?”
As if in agreement, the sword hums.32
There’s something neither of them are telling me. Growing up autistic means adults are always talking about you. Even if I didn’t know what they were dancing around, I’d pick quickly up on the fact of the gap. A hole where the things they’re trying not to say should be.
I’ve read enough stories to know that people don’t just get magical ancient swords for no reason.
“So, why? What’s the pointof all this?”
Dara sighs a heavy, weary sigh. “Sorry, it’s kind of hard to explain and I only know as much as Gelert’s told me. But a very long time ago, a group of six witches defended our world against King Arawn of Annwn. Annwn is one of the Kingdoms of the Other. He wanted to take over our world, so they fought him and won. But the magic they used to seal him inside Annwn is wearing off, and so we, their calonnau – that’s the word for all of us – are waking up.”
I bark a nervous laugh as I realise what they’re getting at. “So we have to stop him, is what you’re saying.”
“Yes, and to do that we need to find everyone, all the calonnau. It’s only together that we’ll have enough power to rebuild the spell that keeps him out of our world and imprisoned in his.”33
Hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes. This is too much. I don’t want this.
“No. No, I’m not part of this chosenonenonsense. This could be any sword! And even if it was Excalibur, anyone could’ve found it! It doesn’t mean anything!” I shout, my voice echoing against the mountain peaks.
My mouth is full of hot metal, and I want to scream. I struggle to my feet, yowling from the pain in my ribs, but only get halfway, crouched on my hands and knees. Dara tries to help me, but I wave them off. I don’t want anyone to touch me right now, not when I’m barely holding on.
“Girl, we know because it’s my job to know and find you,” says the dog sharply. “Why else would we have been here at the rosy bottom of dawn? Because I knew you’d be here.”
“You don’t have to snap at me,” I snap back, burying my face in my arms. “This is all just … too much.”
“It was the water calling to you, you know. Not just the sword, although I suppose Nimuë had a hand in both. It knew you were coming.”
That chill creeps up my spine again, and I don’t want to listen to the truth I can feel in his words. 34“Isn’t every other lake in Wales herlake according to someone?” I groan instead.
