CHAPTER TWO : AUNT ALEX

CHAPTER TWO

AUNT ALEX

In what seemed like no time at all, Lilly opened her eyes to the morning

and the sound of the twins singing away loudly outside her bedroom door,

she guessed they were playing their favourite game of the moment, sitting

on the top stair and pretending they were on the bus.

Lilly grinned as she pushed back the duvet and almost wanted to yell

‘YES’ in her loudest voice possible; today was the day, she was going to

stay with aunt Alex and all thoughts of last night‘s flying had completely

disappeared from her head. She leapt out of bed and pulled back the

curtains to let in the summer sun, blinking at the brightness of the outside

world. Lilly felt so happy and carefree - it was, after all, the beginning of

summer.

She ripped her pyjamas off and threw them onto the end of her bed, put

on a pair of jeans and a T shirt and pulled open her cupboard doors,

rummaging through the tangle of bags, shoes and boots, eventually

finding the trainers she was looking for.

Somewhere in the house she could hear the phone’s shrill ringing. Just as

Lilly was about to pick up her hairbrush, she heard her mum calling from

downstairs.

‘Lilly – Jess on the phone for you – in the study. Are you up yet?’

‘Yeah  mum – coming,’ Lilly called and dashed out of her room nearly

tripping over the twins in her haste to get downstairs.

Lilly entered the study, closed the door behind her and picked up the

phone;

‘Hi Jess it’s me’.

‘I sooo have to talk to you Lilly, the most weird thing is going on.. you’ll

never guess, well you might I don’t know. When I woke up there was a

message in my glitter stuff, on my desk in my bedroom? It wasn’t there

last night I know it wasn’t, and it’s from you, you Lilly. I didn’t make it.

Tell me how you did it Lilly tell tell,’  blurted out Jess, hardly taking a

breath.

Lilly thought for a second before replying. ‘I did so want to leave you a

message. I do remember thinking that last night, with us not being

together for three weeks and everything… but I can’t explain how I did it

right now, I really can’t. It would take too much time and anyway I want

to tell you in person when I get back. I’m so sorry Jess’

‘Oh Lills don’t be sorry, just tell me.  Just a little explanation, pleeease.’

wailed Jess in the most pleading voice she could manage.

‘Jess… if I could explain it I would. I just need to check out some stuff

before I tell you that’s all. Please wait till I get back from aunt Alex’s. I

think she can help me to make sense of it…sort of’

‘You’re making me more curious than ever’ replied Jess ‘It sounds so

mysterious.  I suppose..well,  I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I kept

trying to make you say something you don’t want to?’

‘You’re the best sort of friend,  that’s why we are friends Jess, and I absolutely promise I’ll tell you all about it when I get home’ said Lilly.

‘Ok…’ Jess sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to wait ‘til then. Hey Lilly, do

you want to go into Norwich the weekend you’re back? My dad’s going

to pay me some extra cash for helping him in the shop while you’re away.

I thought we could meet up with Greg, Adam and Ella and all go to the

mall for the day and maybe catch a movie?’ asked Jess hopefully.

‘Cool. I’d really like that, and we could get some lunch and I can tell you

everything then.’

‘Great Lills, see you when you get back then and you do promise to tell

me everything then? Have a really good time and ring if you get bored or

at least ring me as soon as you get home ok?’ instructed Jess.

‘As if I wouldn’t’,  laughed Lilly ‘and yes, I promise…bye for now Jess’

‘Bye Lills, have a good time’ repeated Jess.

Lilly replaced the phone into the hub cradle and let out a long sigh. What

had she been thinking? To leave that message and make her best friend so

curious?

Maybe it was for the best she thought, for whatever aunt Alex could or

couldn’t explain about the flying, she would have to tell Jess everything

now.

Lilly stood for a moment considering how to raise the subject of ’flying’

with her aunt, but couldn’t think of anything other than just asking her

outright. She left the study and went down the long hallway into the

kitchen where her mum and dad sat at the large oak table drinking coffee

and reading the Sunday papers. Emma and Cara were playing hide and seek in the broom cupboard and giggling at each other. The kitchen

smelled of coffee and toast, warm and comforting.

The back door was open and a shaft of sunlight lit up the red tiled floor.

Lilly’s cat, Ponty, was sitting in the sun washing her paws and looking

very contented, as only cat’s can.  She was a tortoiseshell and nearly five

years old; Lilly couldn’t really remember a time when she hadn’t been

there, she was a great cat.

Lilly’s mum glanced up, looking over the top of her reading glasses. This

look of her mum’s always made Lilly think of a certain teacher at school

and was guaranteed to get Lilly’s attention. Lilly was sure her mum did it

on purpose!

‘How’s it going sweetheart – all packed and ready - what did Jess want?’

As usual, her mum had managed to ask three questions in one go!

‘Fine mum – I’m sure I have everything I’m going to need. Jess was just

saying goodbye - again’  Lilly replied, forgetting about school and

teachers. ‘What time are we going dad?’ Lilly turned and asked her father.

‘Oh, in about an hour love,’ said her dad studying his watch with far more

concentration than was really needed, (he always did that when he was

thinking about something major). ‘I need to pop in and see Tom about

some new software on the way to Alex’s and he’s never up and around

until 11 o’clock on a Sunday’.

‘Ok dad’ Lilly said as she went to sort out her breakfast. Lilly took her

bowl of cereal out into the garden and sat on the wooden bench by the

little pond. Blue and brown dragonflies were darting back and forth in the warm morning sun as the little fountain threw out droplets of water, 

reflecting every colour of the rainbow. Although it was still early

morning, the sun was hot and it’s warmth seeped into all the bare bits of

Lilly’s skin, she was beginning to think it was too hot for jeans and that

maybe she should have put on her cut off’s instead. She finished the last

spoonful of cereal and sighed contentedly, it was going to be a fantastic

day.

Two hours later, they were turning into the long lane that led to aunt

Alex’s cottage in the tiny village of Flaxby in the middle of the Norfolk

Broads. It was tiny because there were only about six houses and a small

flint church with a round tower, no shops or pub, with nothing but reed

beds and marsh surrounding it. It was actually the sort of place that once

you were in it, nothing else seemed to exist beyond it.

Lilly and her dad did not speak much during the journey, partly because

Art had been listening to some new c.d his mate Tom had lent him, and

partly because both he and Lilly seemed engrossed in their own thoughts.

As they approached the drive leading from the lane to aunt Alex’s house

he turned off the music.

‘Here we are then,’ he murmured, ‘and please my little Lilly, take care…

won’t you?’ He’d expressed these last two words as a question which

Lilly thought was a little strange, but then she’d often thought her dad

was a little strange hadn’t she?

‘Of course I will dad, and hey! I‘m not so little. I shall probably be stuck

inside washing and labelling specimens for most of the time’ she laughed.

‘NOT if I know my sister’ he said, with what sounded like genuine

concern.

‘Come on dad, what’s wrong?’ Lilly asked, noting his worried expression.

‘I’ve been to aunt Alex’s loads of times before and I’ve always come

home safely, it’s just aunt Alex, not the Hall of the Mountain King or

something’. She had absolutely no idea why she’d just said that. Wasn’t

that the title of a piece of music or a book? Lilly thought to herself.

Her dad stopped the car and gave Lilly a funny little smile, ‘Come on

let’s get your bags out of the boot’ he said, taking the key out of the

ignition and flipping the boot-open catch. ‘I expect it’s because you’re

growing up so fast Lilly’ he continued, struggling with himself to find a

reason for his worried thoughts, ‘and I still…well I suppose, worry a

bit… you know, that you’ll be ok and …,’ his voice trailed off.

The green front door to the old, red brick, thatched cottage flew open and

aunt Alex stood there holding her arms out-stretched and wiggling her

fingers toward Lilly for Lilly to give her a hug. She was tall and fair

haired and looked a lot like Lilly. A lock of hair had escaped the clip at

the back of her head and was hanging down one side of her face in a curl,

she was wearing a faded red T shirt and had a pair of yellow gardening

gloves tucked into the waistband of her old jeans.

Lilly kissed her dad’s cheek and leapt out of the car.

‘Hi aunt Alex’ she yelled as she ran up the path to greet her favourite

aunt. After a giant hug, where aunt Alex and Lilly had nearly lost their

balance and fallen over, Alex turned her attention to her brother.

‘Art, I do miss you and the family, we don’t see nearly enough of each

other. Come and have a cup of tea in the garden.’ She got hold of his arm

and started to lead him around the side of the house. ‘Leave those bags

Lilly, we can do that later’ she called over her shoulder.

‘Can I take them to my room now?’ asked Lilly.  ‘I’ll come down into

the garden soon, I just sort of, you know, want to look around for a

minute.’

‘Ok love, take your time, your dad and I have got masses of catching up

to do,’ Aunt Alex called back happily as they disappeared around the

corner of the cottage.

Alone at the front of the cottage, Lilly sighed with contentment. She

could hear the faint sounds of exclamations coming from the back garden.

The ‘oh really’ and ‘I wouldn’t have thought it’ noises that adults make to

each other when catching up on family gossip, mixing with the sounds of

bee’s buzzing, crickets clicking and the swifts screeching their happy

calls overhead.

From her position by the front door, the garden looked so overgrown with

fire lilies, yellow loosestrife, giant hollyhocks and roses, that Lilly could

not see the lane they had come along or the gate for that matter. She

picked up the bag containing her walking shoes and rain jacket and her

rucksack (just in case they went walking anywhere interesting) and took

them into the cool and dark hall.

Once inside the hall Lilly inhaled deeply. Aunt Alex’s cottage always had

a smell of something just being baked, not quite bread and not quite cake, something in between, even if there was no baking going on. It was a

lovely comforting smell and Lilly had often wondered why no one else’s

house, that she had visited, ever smelt like that.

All the floors were of polished wood and beautiful dark red and blue

Turkish rugs were scattered here and there. Small hall tables with

interesting artefacts on them stood against cream painted walls. Things,

like a dish of unusual shells or a small wooden box of ancient brass keys,

which made you wonder if any of them still fitted any locks, were placed

around in all the little nooks and crannies of the downstairs rooms.

Books and more books were propped on just about every spare surface,

alongside colourful old tobacco tins that contained goodness knows what.

Ancient mahogany chests, full of tiny drawers that contained an

abundance of really interesting things, that Lilly liked to open randomly;

finding one full of small animal skulls and bones or another full of

antique glass marbles, yet another with flint arrow heads or one with old

belt buckles inside.

The whole house was a treasure trove and Lilly could have spent the

entire summer holiday just looking at aunt Alex’s stuff and still not see

everything!  To Lilly, this was what was so cool about aunt Alex’s house;

she was a collector of things and you never knew just what you might

stumble across.

Lilly went back outside to the car and picked up the remaining three bags

of clothes and ‘stuff’. Things she had no idea whether she would need or

not, but they were comforting things, like her small tin of watercolours and a little spiral bound sketch book, her camera and her iPod, even an

old catapult that had been her dad’s years ago. Lilly liked to practice

hitting stones lined up on a wall with it, though she supposed she would

have to grow out of that particular pastime before much longer.

Taking the bags back into the hall, Lilly turned to her left and started up

the narrow stairway holding the biggest bag in front of her and bumping

and squeezing the other two behind her, past the spiral twisted spindles of

the banister.

At the top Lilly turned right and walked to the end of the corridor, past

her aunts room, past the tiny bathroom with the ‘so un-cool’ pink bath

and sink and flowery pink wallpaper that had seen much better days, past

the equally old but perfectly functional pink loo and on to the last door

where she dropped her bags onto the wooden floor boards.

Lilly slowly opened the white painted door with the little oval shaped,

brass handle and looked in.

The smell of lavender wafted out and invaded Lilly’s nose, it came from a

small china dish on the dresser which was crammed with dried lavender

heads. The room was just as she had left it last summer. Pale oak floor

boards, faded pink striped wallpaper, a little dormer window with old,

sun-bleached almost to white, yellow curtains which now floated in the

slight breeze as if they were whispering, welcome back Lilly Miller.

A small chest of drawers and dressing table that had once been varnished

but now had a kind of cracked and crazed effect, caused by years of the

sun shining on them and an ancient brass and iron bed that Aunt Alex said had been Great Grand-ma’s when she was a child.

The bed had on it Lilly’s favourite thing in the whole house, an intricately

put together quilt, made from so many triangle shaped scraps of different

coloured material that it hurt your head trying to work out just how many

different pieces there were within it. Lilly had tried many times in the

past and had always given up. Great Grand-ma had made it stitch by

stitch when she was young and first married, Lilly would have loved to

have known her but she’d died before Lilly was born.

She picked up her bags, took them over to the small chest of drawers and

began to put her things into it. Immediately, the strongest feeling came

into her head that she just didn’t need to be doing this, that she was

somehow, just wasting her time. Lilly shrugged her shoulders, left her

stuff where it was and went out to join her dad and aunt Alex in the

garden.

‘Lilly,’ called her dad as she stepped out of the kitchen door. ‘I have to be

going soon, come and say goodbye.’ He held an arm up for Lilly to

snuggle into and she went and gave him a hug. ‘Be good for Alex and

please, take care if you’re out on the boat’ he told Lilly, kissing the top of

her head.

‘Chill out dad. I know all about the underwater reeds and the currents and

the people that fall in the broads and drown every year.’ Lilly said in an

exasperated tone. ‘You and mum have been telling me all that stuff ever

since I can remember.’

The ‘Broads’ are a large and very beautiful part of Norfolk, consisting of rivers, lakes and marshes. People on boating holidays who don’t know

about the strong river currents, sometimes jump in or fall in the water, get

caught in the reeds and drown; they can be quite dangerous places if you

don’t know about them.

 Lilly’s dad stood back and smiled at his eldest daughter, ‘Ok, ok I’ll

chill’ he said, holding up both hands in a gesture of submission. ‘I don’t

know what’s got into me anyway; I know Alex will look after you and I

know I can trust you to be reasonably sensible, for a teenager,’ he added

teasingly.  Art said his goodbyes to Alex and promised to give her love to

the rest of the family as they walked him round to the car.

Watching him drive away, Lilly said to her aunt, ‘dad’s been a bit odd all

day, he’s not usually that worried about me but today he’s been saying all

sorts of crazy stuff. I hope he’s feeling ok.’

 Aunt Alex gave Lilly’s shoulder a squeeze, ‘I sometimes think your dad

hasn’t completely lost his precog’ abilities. Come on; let’s have an early

tea and a nice long chat. I really do have a lot to tell you.’

‘What’s a precog ability?’ asked Lilly with a rather concerned tone. That

sounded to her like a nasty illness!

‘All in good time Lilly’ said her Aunt laughing, ‘my goodness, don’t look

so worried, I’ll explain everything shortly.’

They went through the dimly lit, cool hallway into the kitchen, which was

down two little steps and was what aunt Alex described as ‘quaint’. Lilly

had asked her what that meant and aunt Alex had said, ‘it means

everything’s old, some of it doesn’t work, and it’s difficult to keep clean, but it does look nice!’ Lilly had laughed at that when she realised that her

aunt was half joking, but half meant it too.

 Aunt Alex got two large wooden trays down from the top of the kitchen

cupboard and put them on the worktop. Lilly made a couple of ham

sandwiches and a large bowl of salad. She took two homemade

shortbread biscuits and two pieces of fruit cake from the tins in the pantry

and put these onto plate with a bowl of strawberries fresh picked from the

garden and loaded it all onto the trays.

Aunt Alex was making a pot of tea and looking for the bone china mug,

the one with the cat on it that looked like Ponty, which she always used

for Lilly whenever she stayed.  They took both trays out of the kitchen

and down to the little seating area at the end of the garden by the dyke

and the boathouse. ‘We’ll eat and drink our tea while I tell you a little bit

about our family and how it all affects you and the er, the task I have in

mind for you’ said aunt Alex.

Lilly picked up a sandwich and settled back to listen.

‘You know how I told you that you had a special gift Lilly, when you

asked how it could be that you sometimes know things before they

actually happen? We called it intuition back then I believe,’ began Alex.

Lilly nodded and took another sandwich.

‘Well,’ she continued, ‘a better descriptive word for what you have is

actually precognition. That is, knowing in advance what’s going to

happen. I just shortened the word to ‘precog’ earlier. It’s an ability that I

hope you will develop more as you get older. Plenty of people in our family have that ability including me and your father, or at least he did

have it when he was younger, along with certain other abilities.’ Alex

gave Lilly a long, knowing look.

‘D..do you mean like flying?’ asked Lilly, trying not to choke on her

mouthful of sandwich.

‘Well yes, that’s certainly one of them and I rather had the feeling that

you could do it Lilly, am I right?’ asked aunt Alex.

Lilly swallowed the last of her sandwich and nodded ‘Yes, I’ve been able

to do it since around last Christmas time; I was going to ask you about it

this visit.’

‘Ahh’ aunt Alex breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That makes everything I have

to say to you so much easier. I’m going to start by telling you about

something that happened when I was about six years old and your dad,

Art, was about eight.

My mother and father, your nanny and gramps, had put us to bed as usual.

Sometime later that evening, mum came upstairs for something and put

her head around the doors of our bedrooms to check on us. Art wasn’t in

his room; she put the light on in my room looking for him, which of

course woke me up. I got out of bed and we all searched the house for a

good ten minutes, calling his name and looking in various cupboards.

Dad was about to go and look outside and mum was getting very worried,

when Art just appeared in the bathroom doorway, which mum and dad

had both searched, blinking at the light and looking like he’d just woken

up.’ Aunt Alex paused for a moment with a very far away look in her eyes. In that moments silence, Lilly could hear innumerable bees droning

in and out of the foxgloves beside her.

Alex picked up her tea cup and continued her story. ‘When mum asked

him where he’d been, he just said the beautiful lady had taken him away. 

Although I was only six at the time, I can still remember the look on my

dads face, a kind of distant recognition I suppose you’d call it; like it had

brought back a half memory for him. Anyway, dad put us back to bed and

it was all forgotten. Although I do seem to remember hearing my parents

discuss it once or twice when they thought we weren’t around.  You see I

think most kids can fly, but they don’t remember it, it fades like a dream.

Your father can’t remember anything about it… I’ve asked him.’

There was silence, apart from the droning bees and tinkling sound of the

dyke beside them. After a moment’s thought, Lilly said ‘but when I fly I

can always see myself laying there on the bed, I call it my earth body, so

if my mum came into my room would she think I had disappeared?’

Aunt Alex looked thoughtful, ‘I don’t think so, some people call your

flying body your ‘astral body’, the astral in this sense meaning not of the

material world and the flying ‘astral projection’, but to anyone looking at

you it would appear that you are still there, because you are still there, 

joined to your astral body. Does that make any sense to you Lilly?’

 Lilly nodded in reply, ‘Sort of, yes. That’s how it seemed to me, while I

was away flying I mean, as if I was still joined somehow. I was never

afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back.’

Aunt Alex smiled, poured some more tea and continued speaking. ‘I believe in your dad’s case of disappearing there is another explanation

altogether, which you may understand as I tell you my real reason for

asking you here.’

Lilly was fascinated and without really thinking about what she was

doing, took some strawberries and a piece of shortbread and waited for

aunt Alex to explain. Alex took a sip of her tea. ‘The universe contains a

countless number… millions in fact, of galaxies and stars, far more than

we will ever know of or have any understanding of, I’m sure you know

this Lilly.  Who knows what other worlds or peoples there may be

somewhere in all that space?’ Aunt Alex shrugged her shoulders and

raised her eyebrows, as if to suggest that something as exciting as an alien

dropping in for tea, could happen at any moment!

Lilly had to have a peep over her own shoulder just to make sure they

were actually alone.

‘I have always believed the same applies to time,’ aunt Alex was saying, 

‘there are other dimensions and times apart from our own, other worlds,

other places, some different some very similar to the one we live in.

Some people Lilly, are lucky enough to be able to ‘go-between’ these

worlds, lucky enough to be able to interact with other beings and

experience the fabulous and fantastic difference of other worlds.’

Lilly felt a small shiver run up her spine and once again had to look

round, she could not help getting the feeling that they were not alone. But

there was no one else, she carried on listening.

‘These people are, for want of a better word, ‘crossers’. That’s not my word for it Lilly, but it is the name given to people like us by the

Norsonians who are people from a land called Norsonia which is just one

of a number of countries in a place called Nors wuld or Norsworld if you

prefer. Nors wuld is …or at least the entrance from this world to theirs is,’

aunt Alex cleared her throat,  ‘erm,  through the back of my boathouse.’

 Lilly gulped and nodded, her eyes as wide as saucers, she could not have

spoken at this point if she had wanted to, which she didn’t. She just

wanted to listen. Aunt Alex had said ‘people like us’ hadn’t she?

‘The Norsonian world is far more beautiful, bright, gentle and exotic than

most places in our world’ continued Aunt Alex, ‘it is a peaceful place,

where the creatures that inhabit it have learned to live together and trade

with each other in harmony. I believe it was one of the High Ladies of

Norsonia who ‘borrowed’ Art,  your dad, all those years ago. You see, I

heard a story when I was there on one of my journeys. The Queen of the

Hah-rold, that’s their Royal Family by the way Lilly, was incredibly sad

because none of her children had lived beyond a few weeks after they

were born. So she sent out one of her most beautiful High Ladies from

the Kort, which is their name for the castle, to find a child from our

world; thinking he may be stronger and live a long and happy life in

Norsonia.

The little boy that was brought to her however, did not want to stay in

that land and so the Hah-rold decreed that he may return home.

 I have often wondered if that child was my brother Art. You have to

understand that time in Norsonia is not the same as here. The Norsonians measure their time by the turns of their moon and from what I could

calculate one of our weeks could be about one of their months, it’s very

hard to tell.’

Aunt Alex poured another cup of tea from the pot and continued her story.

‘There is however one exception in this far too beautiful land of

Norsonia, that being the Tarken. They are from all accounts, because I

Lilly have never met one personally, nasty, evil creatures who want

nothing more than to break into Norsonia and take captive one of their

most treasured possessions, the Gamray.’

 Lilly at last found her voice. ‘What’s the Gamray?’ she asked.

 Aunt Alex thought for a moment. ‘I suppose he’s like a very wise and

noble magician, but he’s more than that, we don’t have a word for what

he is in our language, so I use theirs, Gamray.

It is only through his remarkable gifts that Norsonia is the land that it is

and that its peoples are kept safe. He creates the raining ring and holds it

in place with his extraordinary mental powers; so that the Tarken can’t get

through and cause mayhem. The problem with Norsonia now is that the

present Gamray is very, very old and may die at any time. I know this

Lilly, because of my precognitive ability. I know they will soon be in deep

trouble. A new Gamray has been born, as they always are, to the Hah-rold

of Norsonia, but the child is not ready to take over from the old Gamray

and won’t be for some time. Queen Lewold, the sad Queen I told you

about, did eventually have two sons of her own, Morii and Leekan. It is

Leekan who will be the new Gamray when he is ready.

‘I don’t understand…. about the raining ring and the… Tokens,’  Lilly

said hesitantly.

‘It’s Tarken Lilly. T- A -R -K- E -N,’ aunt Alex spelt out for her. ‘The

raining ring….’ she started to explain, but then said, ‘no, it’s far better

that you see it for yourself tomorrow.’

‘TOMORROW!’ Lilly exclaimed almost falling out of her chair. ‘Do you

mean we can go there….to Norsonia….tomorrow?’

Aunt Alex sighed and suddenly looked sad. ‘No. I can’t really go back; I

made the choice to live out my life here. You see Lilly, the older you get

the more difficult it is to travel between the two worlds and sooner or

later you have to make the decision. Are you going to stay there are or

you going to stay here? I choose here. I love my work and of course I

have all of you, my family. No, I’m afraid you are going to have to go on

your own … if you want to of course.’

Lilly opened her mouth, closed it and then opened it again. ‘Of course I

want to go Aunt Alex but, I don’t see how I can help, I’m only a twelve

year old girl. ’

Aunt Alex took hold of Lilly’s hand across the table and said, ‘Lilly my

dear, you’re nearly thirteen and in any case, to the Norsonians you are a

High Lady. You will be treated with huge respect for the gifts you

possess, your age does not enter into it. You are part of their legends,

much more so than I ever was, you will see for yourself tomorrow.’

Lilly thought for a moment and then quietly said, ‘if you believe I can do

it aunt Alex, then I’m sure I can.’ ‘Good’ said aunt Alex smiling at Lilly, ‘that’s all set then.’

By the time aunt Alex had finished explaining what she could about the

land of Norsonia, her adventures there in the past and a little of how Lilly

would get there herself tomorrow it was getting dark and Lilly’s head was

spinning.

‘I know it’s a lot to take in my dear,’ said aunt Alex ‘and I’m sure we

could keep talking of it all night, but you really do need to get some rest;

you’ve a very busy time ahead of you and it’s probably better if the

Norsonians explain their problems and how they want you to help,

themselves.’ With that aunt Alex stood up and started clearing the table.

‘You make it all sound so… well… so normal aunt Alex, as if Norsonia

was just down the road from Flaxby, in the very next village or

something’ said Lilly in a small voice. Aunt Alex looked over to Lilly and

replied. ‘Well, in a way it is, just down the river anyway. I only wish I

could still go myself but, as I explained to you Lilly, I can’t.’

As Lilly got ready for bed that night, she wondered if she would actually

sleep, everything had happened so fast. But no sooner had she laid her

head on the soft white pillow, she was asleep and dreaming of the land of Norsonia