Chapter THREE

The Journey Begins

Lilly awoke with a start. No sooner had she opened her eyes when

everything aunt Alex had told her last night came rushing back into her head.

Lilly sat up and pulled her favourite quilt closer to her. Had she dreamt all of

that? No, she was certain she hadn’t.

At that very moment as if to confirm her thoughts, aunt Alex tapped on

Lilly’s door. ‘Are you awake yet Lilly, can I come in?’ she enquired softly.

Lilly replied in a sleepy voice, ‘Yes aunt Alex, I’ve just woken up.’ Aunt

Alex opened the door and came in. She was smiling and holding a tray of

orange juice, cereal and toast.

‘Are we getting used to the idea of Norsonia?’ she enquired pleasantly, as if

asking Lilly if she wanted to do something extremely ordinary, like helping

her aunt in the garden.

Lilly blinked and rubbed her eyes, ‘is it all really real?’ she managed. ‘I

mean am I really going there today, to Norsonia?’

‘Of course’ said aunt Alex, putting the tray down onto Lilly’s knees. ‘Now

eat your breakfast, get dressed and come downstairs when you’re ready. It doesn’t matter what you wear by the way, I have arranged for some clothes

to be left for you on the other side of the crossing place. I’ll explain more

when you get downstairs.’ With that she gave Lilly a little kiss on the top of

her head and went out of the room.

Lilly looked at the tray, and picked up a piece of toast, changed her mind and

choose the orange juice instead. She was trying to go through everything

she’d been told the previous night, as she slowly ate her way through the

contents of the tray.

A feeling of excitement mixed with awe and a little apprehension charged

through Lilly’s head like an express train. Now she had finished her

breakfast, Lilly got out of bed and put the tray on the dressing table. She

wandered over to the little window and stood there, looking down the garden

to the boathouse. All the summers that she had been here and been out in

aunt Alex’s little wooden cruiser around the broads and rivers and creeks; all

that time aunt Alex must have known what it was like to visit Norsonia and

she had managed to keep it secret. Lilly hoped she would be able to do the

same, but then it occurred to her, if other people couldn’t just come and go

as they pleased, why would you want to tell anyone else? they couldn’t go

there any way. The only thing to do now was to get dressed and get on with

it, she thought excitedly.

Looking at her ‘still packed’ bags on the floor, Lilly realised why she’d had

the feeling yesterday that she didn’t need to unpack her clothes, after all she

wasn’t going to be using any of them was she? She decided to wear yesterday’s jeans and just found an old vest top in her bag to go with them.

After about ten minutes of hurried dressing, washing, teeth cleaning and

brushing and plaiting her hair, Lilly ran down the stairs and into the little

dining room, where aunt Alex always sat in the mornings.

The room overlooked the garden and further on, the marshes on the other

side of the dyke. There were two windmills in the distance with the morning

sun shining off the white, newly restored sails. Lilly had tried to draw them

last summer, but they were so difficult to get right and eventually she had

given up; her windmills looked more like some sort of alien giants standing

in a field, making threatening gestures with their arms, which was not the

picture Lilly was after! Remembering this made Lilly smile as she went to

her aunt and sat down next to her at the little pine table.

Aunt Alex looked up and smiled as Lilly came in. She was listening to the

radio while she finished her tea and toast. Although breathless with

excitement, Lilly decided to sit quietly for a few minutes whilst waiting for

aunt Alex to finish her breakfast.

She looked round the room. It was just like all the other rooms in the

cottage, full of interesting bit’s and pieces. There was a large welsh dresser,

really much too big for this little room with cups and saucers from lots of

different tea sets on the shelves and every so often, a book tucked in here

and there. There was an old rocking horse stuck in one corner with an even

older, one eyed, stuffed bear sitting on it’s back. There was a large squashy

armchair with several small and deeply embroidered cushions scattered on it and on the walls, were old and especially made wooden cases full of long

dead butterflies, moths and insects, that aunt Alex had found at some auction

and said she felt sorry for and if the poor creatures had given their lives to

some Victorian collector, she might as well enjoy their beauty while it lasted.

It didn’t look like she was going to enjoy them for much longer to Lilly,

most of them were so faded and tatty, but there were still a few that were

very beautiful. Thank goodness, thought Lilly, that people didn’t treat

nature’s rare and beautiful creatures in that way any more.

At the side of the table next to aunt Alex, was a bookcase with a very old

-fashioned radio on it and piles and piles of papers, books and magazines.

Aunt Alex called it her ‘mishmash’ and, if ever she couldn’t find something

she’d say, ‘I expect I’ll find it on the mishmash,’ or ‘just go and look through

the mishmash for me Lilly, there’s a love.’

Alex lent across and switched off the radio, which broke Lilly’s

daydreaming. ‘It’s going to be another glorious day,’ aunt Alex told Lilly as

she started rummaging through the pile of books, her mishmash, on the

bookcase next to her. ‘Now, where is that note book? Ahh…there you are,’

she said to the note book as she delicately plucked it out of the pile with her

thumb and index finger. Lilly noted with interest that nothing else fell off the

tottering pile.

‘Now Lilly, have you got anything that you need to ask me?’ Aunt Alex

turned to Lilly. ‘Um…you were going to tell me about some clothes you said

were left for me?’ enquired Lilly.

‘Oh yes, of course, that’s a good point. You see Lilly; I discovered very

quickly that anything you take into Norsonia just doesn’t last, well…no,

that’s not quite true. In fact they can last, but only if you leave them within a

few metres of the crossing place. As soon as you, well get out of range I

suppose,  a bit like a cordless ‘phone,  they either won’t work or start to

disintegrate or get rusty…problems like that. I’m afraid the same is true of

clothes, they just fall apart after you’ve gone a distance!’

‘Wow,’ said Lilly. ‘That could be embarrassing!’

‘Quite so, quite so’ said aunt Alex, ‘so I arranged for a few items of clothing

to be in the little hut. You’ll find it as soon as you arrive, just by the small

jetty under the canopy of willows on your left.’

‘I just hope I can remember all this aunt Alex, it seems an awful lot,’ replied

Lilly.

Ignoring Lilly’s last comment aunt Alex consulted her little book. ‘Now let

me see’ she said more to herself than to Lilly, ‘yes… clothes… hut… jetty...

willows and…Morii. Morii should be coming to meet you and take you on

into Norsonia itself’ she told Lilly in a matter of fact tone.

‘Who’s Morii?’ asked Lilly.

‘Morii is the eldest son of Queen Lewold and King Litan,’ said aunt Alex ‘he

is also the brother of Leekan, the young Gamray who is under threat from

the Tarken.  When I last saw him, Morii was about thirteen, he may be a bit

older than that now of course, but not much. He’s a very clever, serious and

polite boy, he is after all Hah-rold; he will look after you well.’

Lilly wasn’t sure about meeting this Morii boy, what would he think of her?

What would they talk about? Would they become friends with each other?

But then she thought, he’s only going to take me into Norsonia. I’m sure I

can manage to get on with him for a little while even if he does think I’m

just a kid.

Aunt Alex was continuing, ‘I don’t know how long you will have to wait for

Morii. As I think I mentioned, it’s difficult to keep track of time over there,

but I think if you go this morning, there’ll be a good chance of it being

morning or afternoon when you arrive and with any luck Morii will turn up

shortly after. If he doesn’t, don’t worry, just wait another day. If no one

shows up or you don’t want to stay, you can always come back the way you

came. Just think the wall-gate open. Do you understand all of that Lilly?’

Lilly nodded. ‘Is there somewhere to sleep if I do have to stay the night?’

she asked.

‘Oh yes – the hut has everything you need in it, although you may have to

take a little while working things out’ laughed aunt Alex with a mischievous

twinkle in her eye.

‘I have drawn you a small map in this book and written down everything

that I’ve told you Lilly, but of course it will only be any good while you stay

near the hut and that’s where you must leave the note book when you go

with Morii into Norsonia. It should all be enough until you see Morii’ said

aunt Alex waving the book around, ‘and now we’d better get started.’

Lilly followed her aunt through to the kitchen, she had never in her life felt so excited and…well, grown-up. She was twelve, nearly thirteen about to set

out on her own and on the best adventure anyone could imagine, she was so

looking forward to it.

Aunt Alex had put together a small leather bag which contained a large flask

of tea, a bottle of water, some sandwiches and a packet of chocolate biscuits,

into this she put the little note book. She gave the bag to Lilly, telling her

once again that these things would only last while she was in the area of the

hut.

 She also suggested that Lilly leave her wrist watch on the kitchen

windowsill. ‘That will be just the sort of thing you’ll forget and then you’ll

lose it forever to rust or what-have-you’ said Aunt Alex rather too cheerfully.

As they were about to leave the kitchen for the boathouse, Aunt Alex

stopped abruptly in front of the kitchen door – Lilly almost collided with her.

‘Nearly forgot the most important thing’ she said. ‘You must keep track of

the turns of the moon Lilly and come back on the third turn of the moon. The

THIRD turn of the moon,’ she repeated for emphasis. ‘Morii will help you,

but please remember that or I shall have some rather difficult explaining to

do to your mother and father if you aren’t back here when they come to

collect you.’

Lilly giggled and then looked very serious. ‘I will be able to come back

won’t I aunt Alex?’ she asked. Aunt Alex looked Lilly straight in the eye, put

her hands on Lilly’s shoulders and said very firmly, ‘would I send my

favourite niece anywhere that I couldn’t get her back from?’ she winked and added  ‘come on then, time to go.’

They walked arm in arm down to the boathouse, Lilly swinging the leather

bag as she went.

Aunt Alex took a very ornately carved silver key out of her pocket and

unlocked the small door at the side of the boathouse. She opened the door

which was rather stiff and creaked a bit when she had to push it. Once inside

Alex flipped the switch for the overhead fluorescent light and closed the

door behind them.

Lilly could smell the river in here mixed with a kind of oily smell. The light

wasn’t very good and Lilly had to peer hard to see anything at first, then, as

her eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight outside she could see in front of

them aunt Alex’s little wooden cruiser. Lilly started to walk towards it when

aunt Alex said, ‘no, not that one Lilly, look here.’ Lilly looked to where aunt

Alex was pointing and could only see a small, bumpy shape covered with an

old green tarpaulin. Aunt Alex walked to the shape and pulled the cover

back. This reminded Lilly of a magic show, where the magician always

pulled a cloth of some sort back to reveal a rabbit or some flowers or

whatever his trick was, with a great flourish.

Lilly’s eyes widened in disbelief and wonder. There, bobbing ever so slightly

in the water, was the most amazing boat Lilly had ever seen.

It was made from wood, but painted blue, green and gold and had the most

beautiful carved dragons, leaves, flowers and birds all around the edges.

There was a dragons head carved at the front and a small gold painted seat in the middle of the boat.

‘Wow!...I…I… j…just don’t b...believe this’ stammered Lilly, ‘it’s like a

Viking longboat only small, we did about them at school… this is just…so

cool…oh! It’s got a dragon head…. am I really going on it?’

Aunt Alex smiled and nodded, she looked as if she might cry. ‘Best you get

going Lilly’ she said quietly. ‘You only have to sit in the boat and ‘think’ the

flint wall there at the back of the boathouse open and you’ll be on your way.’

Lilly hugged and kissed her aunt and stepped down into the little craft.

Aunt Alex handed Lilly the small leather bag, untied the mooring rope,

wound it into a little coil and dropped it at Lilly’s feet.

She gave the boat a tiny push away from the landing stage. ‘Don’t forget to

moor her under the willows and tie her securely’ called aunt Alex and added

‘good luck my love and remember – come back at the third turn of the

moon.’

‘I won’t forget, thanks aunt Alex and see you soon,’ the excited Lilly called

back to her aunt.

Lilly faced the flint wall in front of her, took a deep breath, closed her eyes

tight and thought, OPEN.

After a couple of minutes Lilly could hear a series of gentle pops. She

opened her eyes and saw that each flint in the wall was popping away to

reveal a very dark space behind them. It reminded Lilly exactly of blowing

bubbles into the sky and watching them burst one by one in the air.

Before long, there was a gap big enough for the small longboat to pass through and slowly the boat began to move forward.

Lilly held tight to the sides of the boat and found that the carvings seemed to

mould to the shape of her hands and felt really comfortable and secure to

hold on to. Lilly glanced back over her shoulder at aunt Alex, who was

already looking a very long way off and rather transparent, she was standing

on tip toe and waving goodbye….