Wizard

tw. suicide suggestion

Wizard

It was in the side-access tunnel of the Dover to Folkestone line that Lucy first began to question the wisdom of exploring the darker places of the earth with a guy she barely knew. But she liked his stories. She'd considered her propensity for attracting 'project men' as they squeezed their way through

the rusted steel grid bolted to the tunnel entrance. There were gaps, broken-toothed spaces with bars bent inwards. Still, he forced his way through bulky motorcycle jacket and all, losing a few metal buttons in the process. The bare moon gave enough light to throw glints of where they landed and she pocketed them in his wake. She felt the shape of a cigarette lighter she'd forgotten about.

“This might help a bit.” The tiny flame appeared. Her up lit face floated towards him, goblin like. It quickly went out. “Gee, not sure I want to know what's in here.”

“Cheers, that helps. There's not much, just masonry rubble, some old re-bar we don't want to run into. I've already picked through the rest of it. I think someone lived here once. There was a pile of blankets, some tins and stuff.”

She lit it again, they picked their way forward through the debris and drifts of cobweb.

“Nothing too scary, see? Some bricks have caved in from the walls, I hid an ammo tin here somewhere with a few supplies. I'll see if its still here.”

“Caved in? How stable is it in here? How old?”

Several bats darted about them, exiting as the lighter gave out again. Their lurid shapes seemed to glow momentarily in the dark. Could these walls collapse? There was a remaining obstacle; loops of barbed wire hung across the opening into the train tunnel itself.

“Ill light up once more, to get through the wire. Wish we had some ciggies, could do with the extra light!” She made her way towards him. He was searching along the walls, feeling behind the loose bricks. There were dusty webbing wrapped across his shoulders.

“You're in luck girl. I've found my tin, there'll be some baccy in here. And wire-cutters.” The scrape of a tin and creaking sounds followed. He rolled in the dark, “here, light me up. This is a stroke of luck!”

He cut through the wire, sat heavily cross-legged by the track. Hunkered beside him, she crept a little closer for the warmth. They smoked in silence for a few moments. The tiny coals appeared like red eyes in the gloom. She flicked the lighter once more. Away into the darkness stretched the steel spine of the tracks, like a metallic centipede. The light flickered out.

“Just need a comfy armchair now, don't we! Didn't hide one of those down here did you?”

He laughed. “I guess we could strap one to the sidecar and carry it down here. I'd need to do some serious vandalism on the entrance though. I'll do it for you if you want.”

She blew a little smoke his way. “I'm in if you're in. How'd you find out about this place anyway?”

“Tom told me about it. He brought me here when he was hunting out driftwood on the beach below. There are lots of old WW11 bunkers along the chalk cliffs here too, we used to walk and visit them all.”

“Tom – is that your mate I met you with that first time? Outside the Red Lion up in the Lanterns? That giant guy in the army surplus gear, and that ancient oilskin jacket. He had a very deep voice. He didn't walk, he strode. Like Gandalf. Just needed a staff.”

“Yeah that's the one! My best friend. We used to live up there in the old quarter, you know, up past the old High Street, where it goes up to the chapel on the cliff. St Eanswythe's, by the Red Lion. Then when he left Folkestone I got lonely. I used to come here a lot. Watch the trains pass. I could have touched them. I planned to...well, never mind. The voices in my head had started coming back, intrusive thoughts.”

“Was this after you left the Sanctuary?”

“That place! Yes. You've been listening.”

Uh...A LOT. But she didn't mind. He had a sort of knack for breaking into her routine, disturbing the inertia that a long spell of factory work had produced. Anything's preferable after a million stickered Red Galas, sent down the conveyer belt. Even the chance of getting murdered in a train tunnel. She had never meant to stay here in one town for more than one fruit season. Tom interrupted her train of thoughts;

“Did I tell you about how she had us digging for wizards? That's Gwendolyn, head psychologist at the Sanctuary. She believed Merlin was buried in the ground by the barn. Merlin! Tom and I had to dig him up, it was part of our rehabilitation, she said. When we found him then the voices in my head would stop. We could leave.”

“And she was...your therapist? Sounds...helpful.”

“Right! But I don't think any of us would have stayed if the therapists weren't a little made themselves. Tom wasn't mad like us, he had just voluntarily admitted himself in order to keep from murdering his wife, who he'd caught sleeping with the vicar. He did believe everything Gwen told us though.”

“I see.”

“I know he looks dodgy - like a killer! “

“Hey I wasn't saying he looked like a bad guy. That's not what I meant.”

“It's just that...he saved me, in many ways. He had a temper, that was true. I swear though that he's the gentlest man I've ever known. He just overthinks everything. He really took the wizard thing seriously. We dug for days. She left us to ourselves. Tom reckoned we needed to shore up the sides as we worked, so we started filching parts of the barn near where we worked. No one seemed to notice. Then we hit 30 feet and had found no wizards.”

“The barn- was it still standing?”

“It was, just a bit more open-air. We were downing tools for the day when Robert walked through the barn, came to the edge of the pit and pointed his shot gun at us.”

“Robert..?”

“Gwendolyn's husband. He worked off the Sanctuary and thought his highly educated wife was bat-shit crazy. He didn't believe in wizards, or in God, he said. That was our last day there, I guess we graduated early.”

“No sign of wizard? Not even a knotty old branch marvellously preserved, or a tiny casket of magical scales?”

“Not a wand or scale in sight. Wizards don't have scales as far as I know.”

“Didn't Merlin have a dragon friend?”

“That's just in the Netflix series, not real life.”

“Oh...speaking of which, I think I can hear a dragon coming now..”

There was a tremor in the dank air, a sense of a third presence. The whole air breathed violence. I looked back along the side-access tunnel, the way we'd come. I could just make out the broken black grid lacing over the entrance, through which we'd climbed. The moon must have risen.

“I think we should go now.”

“The train is coming. Place your hands on the tracks.”

She did so, read the strange braille, removed them quickly. A rising hysteria, then that projection of industrial light. It was a light that screamed. The whole space filed with high-octane resonance. They removed themselves to just inside the side tunnel. The fags were finished. Lucy reached out and found Toms' hand. He gripped her, pulling her close. The steel-and-fire dragon roared past and away and its throat calls were no more.

His large hands were entwined with hers, he pulled her towards him. Kissed her awkwardly in the ear, found her lips. Salty cigarette kisses, dry lips strange to each other, mapping slowly in the dark. She was breathless and began speaking rapidly;

“I could see people's faces in the carriages, sitting calmly, not seeing us at all. How odd, when we were so close!”

“I know” he replied. “They always look kind of stunned, like they've been seized in the night, kind of swallowed up and carried away.” He wanted to keep kissing now that they had the hang of it. Sort of. His hands were tangled in her long loose hair.

She was shivering, and smiling, then remembered he couldn't see her. “Let's go.”

Outside the air felt clean after the tunnel. It was a frosty night now that the clouds had cleared. They stood a moment looking out from atop the faintly luminous chalk cliffs and witnessed the moon lay her path upon the dark waters in a ripple of phosphorescence.

It was a sight that made you believe in Wizards.