Fighting Pax. Robin Jarvis
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and vibrant purple shadow.
“This damn place is made of weird,” Lee muttered, staring ahead at what stood in the centre.
The guards gripped their rifles a little more tightly as they exclaimed in wonderment.
In the middle of a closely clipped lawn that was freckled with daisies and buttercups, bordered by the vivid colours of hollyhocks, lupins, foxgloves, snapdragons and loosestrife, was a picturesque, circular cottage made from woven hazel twigs and roofed with bark. It was built around three enormous toadstools that reared up between two stone chimneys and whose broad, domed caps provided extra shelter from bad weather. The chimney pots had been fashioned in the form of comical, expressive faces and the smoke that curled from the top of their terracotta heads was pale green and smelled of burnt sugar and fried onions. At the front was a low wicker door and here and there were little windows of leaded glass, whose diamond panes winked in the sun’s failing rays. It was an idealised, child’s vision of a fairy dwelling.
Behind this twee building rose a gnarled and ancient oak, the greatest in the Realm of the Dawn Prince. Its serpentine boughs twisted over the tops of the three toadstools and were heavy with golden leaves. But other things were hanging from those branches. Bundles of garments of every sort – jerkins, hose, scarves, kirtles, cloaks, tunics, hoods and hats – dangled down like cloth fruit.
“Must be laundry day,” Lee muttered. “But that’s gotta be a year’s worth of wardrobe up there.”
He lowered his head, remembering that Charm’s mother had been a laundress in this world. He wished he hadn’t been so consumed by grief after escaping the camp in England. If he had only taken time out to help her deal with her despair, Mrs Benedict might still be alive. Even though he’d dreamed about it most nights since, it was going to be real tough to finally tell Charm her mother was gone, when they were reunited here.
The North Koreans were hesitant about stepping out on to the lawn and venturing near the strange cottage, but they stared, entranced, at the abundant flower borders. They were the loveliest they had seen. Even in Pyongyang there were no blooms to match the intensity and perfect beauty of those growing here. A sea of heavenly perfume flowed out from them and the four members of the People’s Army breathed deeply as memories of their childhood began to stir and they recalled things that had been suppressed or forgotten and dreams that had been forbidden. Even Posh’s perennial scowl lifted.
Another roar behind them wrenched them all back to the present and they hurried over the grass.
Lee wasn’t happy about approaching the cottage either. There was no telling who or what might live there. The woods in this Kingdom were full of peculiar creatures that weren’t even mentioned in Austerly Fellows’ book and he’d learned that the most innocent and sweetest-looking places could harbour the worst dangers. But what other choice was there? As they crossed the lawn, he strained and concentrated, trying once more to return them back to the real world, but it was no use.
Stepping on to a central path made from wide, flat stones, they passed beneath the shadow of the radiating oak branches and moved cautiously closer to the cottage.
There was no movement behind those leaded windows; no sharp little face peered out through the half-open door. The stillness and silence were even more unsettling.
“Hey!” Lee called. “Anyone in there? We just wanna find out where we is. We got ourselves lost.”
There was no answer. Sporty Spice was gazing up at the laundry dangling down from above. He said something to the others and they too stared upwards.
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