Page 3

CHAPTER 3

G etting home was not the easy drive it should’ve been. Powerlines were down. Trees had been uprooted. New buildings had appeared. As in, entire buildings constructed of wood and stone stood in roadways and on paths and where other buildings had previously been. The new wall in the pub belonged to a spire made of some kind of glowing marble, which appeared to have no windows. Just the door that they’d agreed not to open without knowing what lived on the other side. Even standing in the car park, the terrible wailing seemed to echo.

They’d stood there, staring at it for what seemed like hours before Nan had spoken. “I’m not imagining the castle, am I?”

“Nope.” Noah shook his head.

“Or the screaming?”

He wished it were imaginary. There was a part of him that wanted to see if they needed help, but he didn’t know who or what they were.

“Looks like a fairy castle.”

Noah glanced at Nan.

“What? You got a better idea?”

He didn’t. No one did. People on the radio blamed monsters, the fae, or demons. There were plenty of theories but no facts. “Aliens?”

“Pfft. It’s the fae folk. Did you leave out the milk like I said?”

“Yeah.” He’d imagined fairies as small beings. The door to the castle in the pub was bigger than human-sized. He doubted the fae in there wanted a bowl of milk. He’d left out a jug of milk and a cup and the biscuit barrel from the break room.

Nan sighed. “Well, we’d best head home. Hopefully, we still have one.”

While Noah needed to pay attention to the road—which had buckled in places—his attention was drawn to the things that didn’t belong. He tried not to panic, which was kind of futile as his heart was racing, and at some point, he’d be unable to ignore the way fear stalked closer.

“This is a bit of a mess,” Nan said as if the destruction was something that could be cleaned up tomorrow. She didn’t seem bothered. Concerned with a side of grim, but she was acting as though it wasn’t the worst or strangest thing she’d experienced.

This was not a fix-it-tomorrow mess. He wasn’t sure it could be fixed. Where had the buildings come from? And what about the monsters the news had reported? Were there monsters on the other side of the door in the bar?

“Yeah.” Noah slowed and pulled the car over to the side. He stared at the road, or where the road should be. Down the center was a rip like a giant had tried to pull the road apart. Driving was hazardous…was walking any safer? He glanced at Nan. They weren’t that far from home. “Are you able to walk the rest of the way?”

“I hit my head. My legs work fine.” She was already getting out of the car before Noah had formed an argument.

Sure, she seemed fine and didn’t appear concussed. They’d gotten everyone out of the bar and locked up and cleaned up the worst of the broken glass.

“What about…what if there are things out there?”

“We aren’t going to be rescued. Do you want to sit here like tinned monster food?”

“No.” He didn’t want to be monster food at all.

He locked the car and hoped it would be safe. Then they trudged along the street, heading toward home. He helped Nan climb over obstacles and around detours.

“Guess we’re walking to work tomorrow.” He said lightly, not knowing if they’d even go.

“Aye, someone has to clean up the mess we left and check on the castle.”

It took them an hour to walk home, and they didn’t see a single monster. All the neighbors were out in the street, like a meeting needed to be held about the disruptions.

Uncle David rushed over. “Linda.” He embraced his mother-in-law. “Thank God you’re alright.” He pulled Noah in. “You, too. I haven’t been able to get hold of Meredith or Isla and Rhet.”

“The middle of town is chaos. Mer will be dealing with that,” Nan said. “No new buildings here?”

“New buildings?” One of the neighbors asked, peering at them like they were drunk.

It took Noah a moment to realize that aside from cracks in the road, the lack of power, and some fallen trees, there was nothing weird on this street.

“David…it wasn’t an earthquake. It was something else,” Noah said at the same time Nan started talking about the fairy castle now joined to the pub. Which sounded slightly insane, and from the looks the neighbors gave her, it was clear they thought she’d lost it. But he’d seen it.

It was real.

David stared at Noah as if he was to blame for Nan talking about the fae folk.

“Nan’s right. I saw the castle. And other strange buildings in town… Does anyone know what actually happened?”

David shook his head. “No, but it’s happening everywhere.”

That’s what the news reports had said, but it didn’t seem real. The castle next to the pub was real.

“How is that possible?” How did earthquakes hit everywhere? How did new buildings arrive everywhere? Oh God, he didn’t really want to be agreeing with Nan that the fae folk were real, but what else could it be? “Is the world falling apart?”

A screech in the sky made them all glance up. Something flew overhead and if Noah had been smoking a joint, or something else, he might’ve said it looked a lot like a dragon silhouetted against the gray afternoon sky. But that was ridiculous, and he was sober, and the thing was too high up to tell. It must’ve been a bird, but with the lack of lighting and the…

He ran out of excuses because he had seen the tail and the wings.

Around him, people were pointing and yelling, and someone was crying. Another man was all bluster about how it had to be a joke, some kind of promotion for a movie. Global earthquakes didn’t make sense, and dragons weren’t real.

But the cracks in the road were. The damage to the pub was. How was that promotion for anything?

Another neighbor claimed it was the end of days and that the devil was coming for the sinners—he looked at Noah as he spoke—and that they should all pray. It was the same neighbor who’d kicked his daughter out of their home for having a girlfriend. The same neighbors who spread gossip and never had a kind word to say about anyone.

Another screech, and this time the thing, the dragon, was closer.

Noah hoped the dragon ate them first. He glanced up and then at his uncle. “I should give Mum a call.”

David kept his arm around Nan. “Yes, good idea. Maybe they’ve heard more in Australia.”

Noah nodded, but he wasn’t sure what he hoped for. Did he want the news to confirm that, yes, dragons were real? Or to say that they only had twenty-four hours left to live because the Earth was falling apart? What could anyone say that made any of this okay?

He paused for a moment to take in a small amount of damage done to his street. They were lucky, and they didn’t realize it. In a movie, someone would sweep in with a bold plan on how to glue the world back together or lead a group of plucky humans to victory against the invaders or something.

All he wanted to do was call his parents and wait for someone to tell him what to do.

In the house, the TV was going. The reporter linked to reporters in other countries as they shared what they were seeing. They showed footage people had recorded on their phones. He stood frozen in the lounge room watching recordings of buildings erupting out of the ground, roads splitting in half, dragons—and other things he couldn’t name—flying overhead.

Roaming the streets as if confused. Injured. He remembered the screams in the castle. They’d abandoned them instead of helping.

Was that a werewolf limping along the street?

A hideous pale creature washed up on rocks, part human, part fish.

He wasn’t sure he was blinking.

Humans attacked some other creature and left it bloody and dying on the ground.

Another fight, this time between archers and humans with guns.

It was the same devastating footage he’d seen after terrorist attacks or natural disasters. No one had any facts yet, but they wanted to share what they’d seen.

David stepped in front of the TV. “Noah, call your mother. Watching this will do you no good. No one knows anything; this is just fear-mongering.”

“Yeah.” He knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to look away or forget what he’d seen.

Not that he understood what he’d seen. Maybe the people were lying, and they’d taken bits from horror movies. Or gotten dressed up to make things look worse.

It was hard to imagine that this event was happening in every country.

That seemed too impossible.

David guided him to the kitchen and pulled out a chair. Noah sat while his uncle made tea.

“Nan hit her head. There was a bit of blood. She should see a doctor.”

“I think the hospital is going to be a bit busy. I’ll give Isla a call.” He put the cup in front of Noah as if they were going to have a chat. It was easier to talk to David and his aunt than his own parents.

It wasn’t that they didn’t love him, but he’d never once met their expectations. He was never good enough or smart enough, and he didn’t have enough ambition or drive. He was sure they’d only agreed to the gap year, another gap year, because they wanted his cousins’ ambitions to rub off on him. Isla was studying medicine in London, and Rhet had joined the army.

Noah had tried that for one year, did the whole special military gap year program, hoping to appease his father and give him time to think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It had achieved neither.

But it had reinforced his need to be somewhere else. He’d never find out who he was around his parents. He’d been in Wales for a year and a half now.

He worked in the pub, paid rent and board to his aunt and uncle, and was doing a certificate in counseling. Even that wasn’t good enough for his parents.

So, as much as he wanted to call them and make sure they were okay, he also dreaded it. They’d use this as an excuse and tell him he needed to come home.

How did he tell them he was happier here without sounding like an ungrateful brat? He’d gone to the best private school and had everything he asked for…except parents who were there. They were too busy and successful to worry about him. And if they were really put out by his choices, they’d mention his twin.

Would things have been different if there’d been two of them? Would his mother have done fewer hours or hired a second nanny? Perhaps his brother had been the smart, ambitious one. The one who should have survived.

He was the disappointment.

He fiddled with his mobile phone, tempted to jump on social media to see what his friends in Sydney were saying. But they wouldn’t have any more answers than him, and he wasn’t sure they were still his friends. After all, he hadn’t seen them in a year and a half, and he had new friends.

For a couple more heartbeats, he deliberated who to call: his mother or his father. Neither of them had tried to call him. Perhaps they didn’t know it was global, and they thought he was safe.

If the fae castle had been a few meters over, he’d have been squashed beneath it. His lips curved at the thought. A witch squished by a castle. Not that he called himself a witch. He dabbled because that’s what his friends did. It was a bit of fun and an excuse to throw a party. Midsummer, midwinter, an equinox, and a handful of other smaller festivals. His parents disapproved and called it superstitious nonsense.

He called his mother because Aunt Meredith was her sister. The phone rang three times before she answered.

“Noah…you’ve seen the news.”

He’d lived the news. “It’s here too, Mum. We’re all okay.” He assumed his aunt was okay. She was a cop, so no doubt she was seeing the worst of it tonight. “Is Dad okay?”

“Yes…but the house is not.”

Of course she was worried about the house. “There’s a lot of damage here too, buildings, roads…”

“There are new buildings here…and monsters. People are saying we’ve been invaded by aliens.”

“Nan says it’s the fae folk.”

He almost heard his mother’s eye roll. “Of course she’d say that.”

Noah bit back his annoyance at his mother’s dismissal. “It makes as much sense as aliens.”

His mother made a noise that might have been begrudging agreement. “I’m glad you’re okay. We think you should come home.”

And there it was. Even though the world had been turned upside down, she didn’t want to let him slide free. “I don’t think now is a good time to travel.”

That trip to France he had planned next month was probably not going to happen.

“Noah…it was only meant to be a year, and then you’d come home and?—”

“Mum, I’m working and studying. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Don’t be obtuse. You need a career.”

“There are dragons flying overhead, and the pub is now half weird, shiny, fairy castle. I don’t give a fuck about a university degree and a career.” He wanted to wake up tomorrow and find out that this was a nightmare, but that wasn’t going to happen. The best he could hope for was that when he woke up tomorrow, somebody had answers and a plan, and they weren’t all going to be eaten by dragons.

As much as he loved reading fantasy books and playing fantasy games growing up, it had not prepared him for living in a world with other creatures. He was as bad as Nan at accepting that there were in fact other creatures. Was he going to bow and kneel at the feet of the invaders or join the rebels and fight them?

They were the only two options, right?

“Dragons?” his mother asked.

“Yeah, I saw one flying overhead.” Could a dragon bring down a plane? He did not want to find out. He was also concerned at how easy it was to admit that it had been a dragon.

It felt surreal, but not in the bad trip kind of way. Or the good trip kind of way.

“Are you sure you saw a dragon and not a bird or something?”

“It had wings and a tail… I guess it might’ve been a dinosaur or something.”

“Don’t be smart with me.”

Noah bit his lip, resisting the urge to snap back. She was his mother, but he was an adult. He didn’t have to obey. “Do you want me to pass on a message to Nan, or will you call her yourself?”

“I’ll call her tomorrow. Maybe we’ll know a bit more by then.”

“Yeah.” Though knowing more may not help. “I’ll speak to you soon.”

“Please think about coming home, Noah.”

“Be safe, Mum.” He hung up.

David walked back into the kitchen. “Linda told me to stop fussing and that her head was fine. She said you wouldn’t let her stay to finish cleaning up.”

“Oh my God. We had no power, and she has a head injury.” He held up his hand. “And I didn’t need another cut.” And the screaming was unnerving.

“It’s okay, son. I’m not blaming you. I don’t think anybody’s going to be turning up at the pub for a drink tonight.”

Noah lifted his eyebrows. “Have you met the regulars?”

They were there every day for opening, ready for a pint and lunch and a bet on whatever game or race was happening. Then there was the dinner crowd.

How long would the pub be closed? Would they even be able to reopen with the fairy castle stuck on the side?

“What will happen now?” Noah asked. If the pub was closed, he didn’t have a job, and without a job, he couldn’t pay board, and then he’d have to go home.

He’d rather face off with a dragon.

“I think a state of emergency will be called. Everyone will be asked to stay home unless they need medical care. Emergency services will get the power back up and make sure everyone has access to water. After that, they’ll start patching roads. Some parts might be closed off because there’s too much to repair.”

“And what about the new buildings? And the…” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘monsters.’ That seemed kind of disrespectful if they were fae, and from everything Nan had said, being rude to the fae was a bad idea. “Other beings?”

David scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I’m a primary school principal. I taught math. I’m not even sure Meredith knows how to deal with this.”

“I’m sure she’s okay.”

David nodded, but worry filled his eyes, and tension pinched the corners of his lips. Noah wanted to say something else, but words wouldn’t make David feel better or change anything.

No one had a fucking clue what was going on. That was the most terrifying part.