Excerpt: A Fool's Hope/Scavenger

Dark.

The darkness is all that I am aware of at first. It surrounds me like a thick cloak, all around me, above and below. I gulp down a lungful of air in a panic. Suffocating. So dark. Too dark. The air is dark – where is the sky? Where is the sun?

Then a light suddenly flares up and I jump in shock. A fire is suddenly blazing before me, on the floor in a simple fireplace set in the center of the room. The light from the fire throws shadows in all directions, flickering and leaping, dancing with the dark, and the room seems even more dark than before. A few vague shapes take on more clarity in the firelight. A loom in one corner, hung with a half-finished piece of cloth. It is too dark to see what colour or pattern it is. A simple chair set against the stone walls. A sword hung on one wall, surprisingly elegant against the crude stones that make up the wall.

Still dark. The fire leaps up again, and the loom and the chair and the sword all vanish again into the darkness.

Silence.

‘Hello?’ I call.

Silence.

‘Hou?’

Silence.

I feel a faint tingle in the back of my mind, a faint pressure between my shoulders. The Sense tells me that there is someone else in the room with me.

‘Hello?’ I call again.

Silence.

‘I can see you!’ I call hopefully.

‘Goosey Goosey Gander, whither will you wander?’

I leap backwards in terror, my heart hammering. A girl suddenly seems to materialize out of the fire and stand in front of me.

‘What?’ I demand, my heart still thumping in my ears in shock.

The girl smiles, and now I realise that she is not a girl. She is an elf; a she-elf of about sixteen years old. Her hair is loose and long across her shoulders and burns as bright a gold as the fire behind her. Her eyes are like two identical leaping flames, golden and orange mingled together, like living amber.

‘Goosey Goosey Gander,’ she repeats clearly, and her voice is clear and accented. ‘Goosey Goosey Gander, whither shall you wander? Up stairs, downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber. There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers, so I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.’

‘What?’ I simply cannot think of anything else to say.

She smiles again. ‘Goosey Goosey Gander, whither shall you wander? Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber. There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers, so I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.’

‘But what? What does that mean?’

‘Goosey Goosey Gander –’

‘All right. I heard it the first time and the second time and I really don’t need to hear it a third time. If you don’t mind of course,’ I add belatedly.

She takes no notice whatsoever. ‘There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers, so I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.’

‘Please,’ I begin, and then stop.

‘Yes?’ she asks.

‘Please, can you not say that again? I don’t know what it means.’

‘Does anyone?’ she asks rhetorically.

‘Very probably,’ I say, unwilling to bow to rhetoric.

She smiles. ‘What is your name?’

‘The Raven.’

‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘What is your name?’

‘I told you – the Raven.’

‘No.’ Another shake of the head. ‘That is what you are called. What is your name?’

I frown, puzzled. ‘I don’t… I don’t know what you mean.’

‘What is your name?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What is your name?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What is your name?’

‘I don’t know!’ I cry, frustrated. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Can’t you?’ She takes a step towards me, but I immediately take two steps back. She stretches out her hand. ‘Come.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘You’re a hybrid. Come here now.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Please. No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t.’

She lifts one golden eyebrow. ‘And since when did that help anyone? Come here now.’

‘No.’ I back away from her, scared now.

‘Hybrid.’

‘You’re not my mistress. Only Mistress makes me do things.’

‘I am an elf. I am your mistress. Everyone is your mistress and your master, because you are a hybrid.’ She doesn’t seem to move, but suddenly she is right in front of me, her hand out stretched. My heart suddenly speeds up again, beating hard and fast in my ribs, and it hurts. Each breath comes quick and shallow and ragged. Her fingers touch my forehead, and I close my eyes tight, and a whimper slides out from between my teeth.

Her fingers leave my skin, and there is a long silence. I manage to open my eyes. The she-elf is standing in front of the fire with her back to me, standing out black and bold against the flames. There is a long silence, and then she whispers, ‘Why?’

‘Why what?’ I ask, trying to get my breathing and heart rate under control.

‘Why everything.’

‘That’s too complicated to answer in one sentence.’

‘So use two.’ She turns around and looks at me, and the fire leaps up and reflects in her eyes. ‘Goosey Goosey Gander,’ she whispers again. ‘Whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber. There I met an old man who wouldn’t say his prayers, so I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.’

‘What does that mean?’ I ask, frustrated. ‘You’re ridiculous.’

‘More so than you are?’

‘Infinitely so.’

She sighs and still whispering, ‘Goosey Goosey Gander, whither shall I wander?’ she steps forward and vanishes into the fire.

I stare at the place where she stood, and suddenly I feel terrified. I take a step back and trip over something behind me. I crash down on the floor and huddle there into a ball with my arms over my head. ‘This isn’t real,’ I whisper to myself. ‘This isn’t real. This is a dream, just a dream, that’s all. Just a dream.’

Only it doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels more like a memory. Not like dreaming. It feels unfamiliar. Like remembering.